Trickster Chases the Tale of Education 9780773549081

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Trickster Chases the Tale of Education

m c g i l l - q u e e n ’ s n at i v e a n d n orthern series (In memory of Bruce G. Trigger) Sarah Carter and Arthur J. Ray, Editors

1 When the Whalers Were Up North Inuit Memories from the Eastern Arctic Dorothy Harley Eber 2 The Challenge of Arctic Shipping Science, Environmental Assessment, and Human Values Edited by David L. VanderZwaag and Cynthia Lamson 3 Lost Harvests Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy Sarah Carter 4 Native Liberty, Crown Sovereignty The Existing Aboriginal Right of Self-Government in Canada Bruce Clark 5 Unravelling the Franklin Mystery Inuit Testimony David C. Woodman 6 Otter Skins, Boston Ships, and China Goods The Maritime Fur Trade of the Northwest Coast, 1785–1841 James R. Gibson

7 From Wooden Ploughs to Welfare The Story of the Western Reserves Helen Buckley 8 In Business for Ourselves Northern Entrepreneurs Wanda A. Wuttunee 9 For an Amerindian Autohistory An Essay on the Foundations of a Social Ethic Georges E. Sioui 10 Strangers Among Us David Woodman 11 When the North Was Red Aboriginal Education in Soviet Siberia Dennis A. Bartels and Alice L. Bartels 12 From Talking Chiefs to a Native Corporate Elite The Birth of Class and Nationalism among Canadian Inuit Marybelle Mitchell 13 Cold Comfort My Love Affair with the Arctic Graham W. Rowley 14 The True Spirit and Original Intent of Treaty 7 Treaty 7 Elders and Tribal Council with Walter Hildebrandt, Dorothy First Rider, and Sarah Carter

15 This Distant and Unsurveyed Country A Woman’s Winter at Baffin Island, 1857–1858 W. Gillies Ross 16 Images of Justice Dorothy Harley Eber 17 Capturing Women The Manipulation of Cultural Imagery in Canada’s Prairie West Sarah Carter 18 Social and Environmental Impacts of the James Bay Hydroelectric Project Edited by James F. Hornig 19 Saqiyuq Stories from the Lives of Three Inuit Women Nancy Wachowich in collaboration with Apphia Agalakti Awa, Rhoda Kaukjak Katsak, and Sandra Pikujak Katsak 20 Justice in Paradise Bruce Clark 21 Aboriginal Rights and SelfGovernment The Canadian and Mexican Experience in North American Perspective Edited by Curtis Cook and Juan D. Lindau 22 Harvest of Souls The Jesuit Missions and Colonialism in North America, 1632–1650 Carole Blackburn

23 Bounty and Benevolence A History of Saskatchewan Treaties Arthur J. Ray, Jim Miller, and Frank Tough 24 The People of Denendeh Ethnohistory of the Indians of Canada’s Northwest Territories June Helm 25 The Marshall Decision and Native Rights Ken Coates 26 The Flying Tiger Women Shamans and Storytellers of the Amur Kira Van Deusen 27 Alone in Silence European Women in the Canadian North before 1940 Barbara E. Kelcey 28 The Arctic Voyages of Martin Frobisher An Elizabethan Adventure Robert McGhee 29 Northern Experience and the Myths of Canadian Culture Renée Hulan 30 The White Man’s Gonna Getcha The Colonial Challenge to the Crees in Quebec Toby Morantz 31 The Heavens Are Changing Nineteenth-Century Protestant Missions and Tsimshian Christianity Susan Neylan

32 Arctic Migrants/Arctic Villagers The Transformation of Inuit Settlement in the Central Arctic David Damas 33 Arctic Justice On Trial for Murder – Pond Inlet, 1923 Shelagh D. Grant 34 The American Empire and the Fourth World Anthony J. Hall 35 Eighteenth-Century Naturalists of Hudson Bay Stuart Houston, Tim Ball, and Mary Houston 36 Uqalurait An Oral History of Nunavut Compiled and edited by John Bennett and Susan Rowley 37 Living Rhythms Lessons in Aboriginal Economic Resilience and Vision Wanda Wuttunee 38 The Making of an Explorer George Hubert Wilkins and the Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913–1916 Stuart E. Jenness 39 Chee Chee A Study of Aboriginal Suicide Alvin Evans 40 Strange Things Done Murder in Yukon History Ken S. Coates and William R. Morrison

41 Healing through Art Ritualized Space and Cree Identity Nadia Ferrara 42 Coyote and Raven Go Canoeing Coming Home to the Village Peter Cole 43 Something New in the Air The Story of First Peoples Television Broadcasting in Canada Lorna Roth 44 Listening to Old Woman Speak Natives and Alternatives in Canadian Literature Laura Smyth Groening 45 Robert and Francis Flaherty A Documentary Life, 1883–1922 Robert J. Christopher 46 Talking in Context Language and Identity in Kwakwaka’wakw Society Anne Marie Goodfellow 47 Tecumseh’s Bones Guy St-Denis 48 Constructing Colonial Discourse Captain Cook at Nootka Sound Noel Elizabeth Currie 49 The Hollow Tree Fighting Addiction with Traditional Healing Herb Nabigon 50 The Return of Caribou to Ungava A.T. Bergerud, Stuart Luttich, and Lodewijk Camps

51 Firekeepers of the TwentyFirst Century First Nations Women Chiefs Cora J. Voyageur 52 Isuma Inuit Video Art Michael Robert Evans 53 Outside Looking In Viewing First Nations Peoples in Canadian Dramatic Television Series Mary Jane Miller 54 Kiviuq An Inuit Hero and His Siberian Cousins Kira Van Deusen 55 Native Peoples and Water Rights Irrigation, Dams, and the Law in Western Canada Kenichi Matsui 56 The Rediscovered Self Indigenous Identity and Cultural Justice Ronald Niezen 57 As affecting the fate of my absent husband Selected Letters of Lady Franklin Concerning the Search for the Lost Franklin Expedition, 1848–1860 Edited by Erika Behrisch Elce 58 The Language of the Inuit Syntax, Semantics, and Society in the Arctic Louis-Jacques Dorais

59 Inuit Shamanism and Christianity Transitions and Transformations in the Twentieth Century Frédéric B. Laugrand and Jarich G. Oosten 60 No Place for Fairness Indigenous Land Rights and Policy in the Bear Island Case and Beyond David T. McNab 61 Aleut Identities Tradition and Modernity in an Indigenous Fishery Katherine L. ReedyMaschner 62 Earth into Property Aboriginal History and the Making of Global Capitalism Anthony J. Hall 63 Collections and Objections Aboriginal Material Culture in Southern Ontario, 1791–1914 Michelle A. Hamilton 64 These Mysterious People Shaping History and Archaeology in a Northwest Coast Community Susan Roy 65 Telling It to the Judge Taking Native History to Court Arthur J. Ray 66 Aboriginal Music in Contemporary Canada Echoes and Exchanges Edited by Anna Hoefnagels and Beverley Diamond

67 In Twilight and in Dawn A Biography of Diamond Jenness Barnett Richling 68 Women’s Work, Women’s Art Nineteenth-Century Northern Athapaskan Clothing Judy Thompson 69 Warriors of the Plains The Arts of Plains Indian Warfare Max Carocci 70 Reclaiming Indigenous Planning Edited by Ryan Walker, Ted Jojola, and David Natcher 71 Setting All the Captives Free Capture, Adjustment, and Recollection in Allegheny Country Ian K. Steele 72 Before Ontario The Archaeology of a Province Edited by Marit K. Munson and Susan M. Jamieson 73 Becoming Inummarik Men’s Lives in an Inuit Community Peter Collings 74 Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge Ethnobotany and Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples of Northwestern North America Nancy J. Turner

75 Our Ice Is Vanishing/ Sikuvut Nunguliqtuq A History of Inuit, Newcomers, and Climate Change Shelley Wright 76 Maps and Memes Redrawing Culture, Place, and Identity in Indigenous Communities Gwilym Lucas Eades 77 Encounters An Anthropological History of Southeastern Labrador John C. Kennedy 78 Keeping Promises The Royal Proclamation of 1763, Aboriginal Rights, and Treaties in Canada Edited by Terry Fenge and Jim Aldridge 79 Together We Survive Ethnographic Intuitions, Friendships, and Conversations Edited by John S. Long and Jennifer S.H. Brown 80 Canada’s Residential Schools The History, Part 1, Origins to 1939 The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume 1 81 Canada’s Residential Schools: The History, Part 2, 1939 to 2000 The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume 1

82 Canada’s Residential Schools: The Inuit and Northern Experience The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume 2 83 Canada’s Residential Schools: The Métis Experience The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume 3 84 Canada’s Residential Schools: Missing Children and Unmarked Burials The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume 4 85 Canada’s Residential Schools: The Legacy The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume 5 86 Canada’s Residential Schools: Reconciliation The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume 6 87 Aboriginal Rights Claims and the Making and Remaking of History Arthur J. Ray

88 Abenaki Daring The Life and Writings of Noel Annance, 1792–1869 Jean Barman 89 Trickster Chases the Tale of Education Sylvia Moore

Sylvia Moore

Trickster Chases the Tale of Education McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2017 isbn isbn isbn isbn

978-0-7735-4906-7 (cloth) 978-0-7735-4907-4 (paper) 978-0-7735-4908-1 (epdf) 978-0-7735-4909-8 (epub)

Legal deposit first quarter 2017 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Moore, Sylvia, 1957–, author Trickster chases the tale of education / Sylvia Moore. (McGill-Queen’s Native and northern series ; 89) Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. isbn 978-0-7735-4906-7 (cloth). isbn 978-0-7735-4907-4 (paper). isbn 978-0-7735-4908-1 (pdf) isbn 978-0-7735-4909-8 (epub) 1. Micmac Indians – Education – Nova Scotia. I. Title. II. Series: McGill-Queen’s Native and northern series ; 89 e96.65.n67m66 2017

371.829'973430716

c2016-906299-6 c2016-906300-3

Contents

Acknowledgments | xiii

1 2 3 4

5 6

Crow’s First Story | xv The Story Begins | 3 Introducing the Research | 9 A Tale: The Learning Circle | 16 Crow’s Second Story | 19 A Tale: The Inside Out Circle | 56 Crow’s Third Story | 64 Crow’s Fourth Story | 83 Crow’s Fifth Story | 92 A Tale: The Outer Circle | 107 A New Tale | 119 Crow’s Sixth Story | 124 Postscript | 126 Appendix: My Personal Reflections on the Teachings | 131 Notes | 149 Bibliography | 169 Index | 181

Acknowledgments

I extend my humblest gratitude to: The staff of McGill-Queen’s University Press. Sections of this writing have been previously published as: Sylvia Moore, “A Trickster Tale about Integrating Indigenous Knowledge in University-Based Programs,” Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences 2, 4 (2012): 324–30. This writing is reprinted here with permission from Springer. The Ancestors, the Elders and Traditional Teachers, Crow, Salmon, Ideas, Time, the Land, and Silence. Todd Labrador, Tina Dixon, Jamie Jermey, the people of Wildcat First Nation, and Rose Meuse of Bear River First Nation. Mi’kmaw Knowledge Keepers: Albert Marshall, Murdena Marshall, Marie Battiste, Kerry Prosper, Fred Metallic, and Stephen Augustine. My husband, Doug Potter, and my children: Cheyenne, shalan, Cody, Chkupan, and my grandchildren: Laylia, Malaika, Milidow, Orion, Patrick, and Jason. The staff and students of North Queens School and the South Shore Regional School Board. My knowledge of storytelling has come from listening to and reading traditional Aboriginal stories. I want to acknowledge my daughter, shalan joudry, a storyteller, in my learning.

xiv

Acknowledgments

However, I am not an Elder and I claim no cultural expertise in storytelling or in Mi’kmaw knowledge and ways of understanding the world. I take personal responsibility for any errors, omissions, or misunderstandings in this writing. I am still learning.

Crow’s First Story1

“So, you want to know about developing Aboriginal education?”2 Crow says.3 I nod my head. “Did you ever hear the story about Weasel’s first day at school?”4 Then he begins as if he knows that I will benefit from the story, regardless of whether or not I have heard it before. “Well it is Weasel’s first day at school and he is jumping up and down and spinning around! Oh, he is so excited about the promises of schooling! Around and around he is running, looking for all those promises; round and round in a circle until he is chasing the tale of education. That Teacher is hopping mad. ‘Hey! Stop knocking things over and settle down! Look at that Big Mess you made in education,’ she says. Weasel is so dizzy from all that spinning and chasing that everything looks blurry. He lies there on the ground, his eyes rolling around in his head. He sniffs the air. Those promises of schooling smell rotten. He opens one eye and then the other, looking and looking. He can see that some of the threads holding life together are torn.5 They are old, frayed, and dirty. They are rotten. That is a mighty Big Mess in education. ‘I didn’t make that Big Mess,’ says Weasel. ‘That mess is old. ’Bout time that Big Mess got fixed up.’”6

Trickster Chases the Tale of Education

Chapter One

The Story Begins

i n t ro du c t i o n Crow and I are in Kespukwitk, one of the seven districts of Mi’kma’ki, or the Mi’kmaw Nation, in the northeastern region of Turtle Island.1 Wildcat First Nation, a part of the Acadia Band, is a small Mi’kmaw community in this area. It is on the banks of the Wildcat River, a tributary of the Medway River. Mi’kmaw children and youth from Wildcat First Nation attend North Queens School, a primary (kindergarten) to grade twelve school in the adjacent village of Caledonia. The school is located between the Mersey River and the Medway River, watersheds that are about twenty kilometres apart. My adult children live in Bear River First Nation, which is also in Kespukwitk, and other extended family members live in Wildcat First Nation. I live between these two communities, on the small strip of land between the Mersey and the Medway Rivers. I am a researcher and educator at North Queens School, and the self-appointed storyteller of this project. The story chronicles the collaborative efforts of Wildcat First Nation community members and North Queens School staff as we collaborate and learn – initially through a salmon project based in the community and then through the implementation of a Native studies course in the school. Both initiatives reflect our efforts

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to centre and legitimate Mi’kmaw knowledge in the school. This version of the story, told for all people (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) who struggle with colonized minds, balances academic protocols with Indigenous storytelling. Although attending to the endnotes may divert the reader’s attention and break with the flow of the story, these scholarly references are in place for those who are interested in further research. The story may be read without this disruption. In telling this story I rely extensively on an autobiographical narrative to recount my personal struggles to decolonize my mind throughout the research process. However, as Australian scholar Brian Wattchow explains, “Too narrow a knowing privileges one story over another, and silences voices that equally belong and have a right to speak.”2 And so it is that many other voices are intertwined with this predominately first-person narrative. By interweaving the many voices and perspectives, I am honouring their talk and their truth. There are the voices of Crow and Salmon3 as well as the co-researchers of this story, Todd Labrador, Tina Dixon, Jamie Jermey, and shalan joudry. Todd, Tina, and Jamie are from Wildcat First Nation. Todd is an Elder, Tina is the Aboriginal support worker at the school, and Jamie comes to the school regularly to drum with students. Shalan lives in Bear River First Nation. She is my daughter and she is a storyteller. Todd, Tina, Jamie, shalan, and I all have a vested interest in the education of Mi’kmaw youth and in the local public school changing to reflect a Mi’kmaw worldview in the education of Mi’kmaw youth.4 We are all also interrelated through extended family and we all work with youth, both in formal and informal education settings. Since I came to the school six years ago, Jamie, shalan, Todd, and Tina have collaborated with me on numerous school-based projects that attempted to move an Aboriginal education agenda forward. This research is part of our ongoing collaborative work.

The Story Begins

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As well as these intertwined voices, there is silence, which Anishnaabe educator Deborah McGregor indicates is “an important part of storytelling methodology.”5 Silence allows me to learn from those who do not speak in words. “I learn from the water and wind and trees and the moon and the seasons. I do most of this in silence. Frank says you can talk to the land and it will talk back to you after a while. I sit in silence, not knowing what to say or if I would know the voice of the earth if I heard it.”6 l o c at i n g m ys e l f Researcher location, “an essential component of the research process,”7 is about being “in relationship to the land, language, spiritual, cosmological, political, economical, environmental, and social elements in one’s life.”8 I have lived on the traditional territory of the Mi’kmaq most of my life. My home is situated on the South Mountain at the headwaters of the Mersey River watershed, an important local river. It also sits in very close proximity to the headwaters of the Medway River watershed of which the Wildcat River is a part. I have a spiritual connection to the traditional lands on which I live and work, developed through the teachings I have received from Elders. My relationship to the land, the trees, the waterways, and the life on this land has shaped my character and my commitment to Aboriginal education that is based in the local environment. I was born into a family that, at that time, negated any bloodlines or familial relations to the Mi’kmaq. Several Mi’kmaw people who married into the family became my aunts or uncles and they, along with their children (my cousins), were quietly assimilated into the family. A recent suggestion by a family historian that my great-great grandfather was Mi’kmaw has not been substantiated.

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My marriage to a Mi’kmaw man when I was eighteen years old transformed my life. It was then that I was pulled into the daily reality of First Nations politics and, along with my extended Mi’kmaw family, lived a life where the differences between Indigenous and Eurocentric views of the world were salient.9 My birth family ignored my husband’s heritage but when our children were born I would not allow them to be labelled by an identity based exclusively on European descent. With the birth of my first child, Cheyenne, I claimed my responsibilities to the Mi’kmaw Nation. Since that time, I have been committed to this work. It is through my life as a Mi’kmaw mother and grandmother that I locate myself foremost in my deep sense of kinship to the Mi’kmaw Nation and the responsibilities that go with it. I embrace the belief that “the state of our nation thus depends on how we rectify the injustices to our children of the past and how we ensure the well-being of the children of the present and future.”10 The need for Aboriginal students to receive a modern-day education that is founded in an Aboriginal worldview is the impetus of my work. I attended North Queens School, as did my youngest daughter, Chkupan, and many members of my extended family. I locate myself as a teacher and a school administrator inside the public education system.11 It is through this role that I work to address the assimilation of our children through what Mi’kmaw scholar Marie Battiste refers to as “cognitive imperialism.”12 As a teacher and as a mother of Mi’kmaw children and grandchildren who do not have access to schools under the jurisdiction of Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey,13 I put my efforts into publically funded education that enables students’ Mi’kmaw consciousness, language, and identity to flourish.14 I recognize that schools can be understood as “sites of struggle” that must be transformed15 and that Aboriginal education is “a thing of its own.”16 Teachers play a pivotal role in opening up the educational spaces to Mi’kmaw knowledge and in

The Story Begins

7

challenging the domination of Eurocentric knowledge in public school education. I actively advocate for the development of education that centres and legitimates Mi’kmaw knowledge and I work to find ways to support Mi’kmaw students in assuming “their place as Aboriginal citizens and peoples in a global society.”17 The students I teach are my children, my grandchildren, and my family. My interest in their education gives me both a personal and a professional responsibility for their learning. As an educational researcher, the teachings of Marie Battiste, a member of Potlo’tek First Nation, are of particular interest to me not only in the way they speak to the many theoretical topics within Aboriginal education but also because Battiste exemplifies scholarship that has developed both through the historical context and within the present socio-political context of the Mi’kmaw Nation. l o c at i n g t h e c o - r e s e a rc h e rs Todd, Tina, and Jamie are all members of Wildcat First Nation. Todd has lived in the Wildcat area for his entire life and is related to most of the people in the community. He is the son of Mi’kmaw Elder Charlie Labrador, the hereditary Chief of Wildcat. Charlie was Todd’s traditional teacher until Charlie’s passing in 2002. As a hereditary Chief, Todd is a member of the Sante’ Mawio’mi, the traditional Mi’kmaw government. He is also the local band councillor responsible for the portfolios of youth and culture. He participated in the video A’tugwet,18 about the Mi’kmaw history of the area. Both Todd and his children attended North Queens Schools. He is a traditional teacher and a guide to both Tina and me. Tina is a member of the Acadia Band and moved to Wildcat several years ago. She is related to some of the people in the community and her youngest son attends North Queens School. Tina is an Aboriginal support worker employed by the South

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Shore Regional School Board, the regional education authority for the school, and she works at North Queens School part time. In addition to this position, Tina informally takes on the role of liaison between the community and the school, and between the community and the band, regarding matters related to the local youth. Shalan is the mother of two of my grandchildren. She has also participated in a number of collaborative projects with me. Shalan edited two videos, A’tugwet and The Forest and the Trees: Teachings and Learnings from the Southwest Nova Biosphere Reserve, both of which were made by students.19 Shalan is involved in this current research as a storyteller. Jamie is a graduate of North Queens School and he comes frequently to the school to drum with students. He is a cousin to shalan, Todd, and Tina. Jamie also participated in the video A’tugwet. All four people are Mi’kmaw community members who, along with me, are interested in moving an Aboriginal education agenda forward. We talk frequently about opening education up to better support Mi’kmaw students and youth, and we all have perspectives on the needs of the Mi’kmaw community as they are reflected through our own lived experiences and through our children. We collectively echo the words of Mi’kmaw Chief Darlene Bernard of Lennox Island First Nation: “At the end of the day it’s about the children; it’s always about the children.”20

Chapter Two

Introducing the Research

e x p l a i n i n g m e t h o d o l o g y to c row “That’s a really funny story about Weasel,” I tell Crow. “I wasn’t planning on you telling stories when you came into this project.”1 “What were you planning?” he asks. “Well, this is about research. There were no weasels involved in it. If you’re going to help me, you need to be serious.” He puts on a pair of glasses and balances them on his beak. “You have to look the part,” he says. Then he winks and sticks the end of each wing through what should have been the lenses of the glasses, almost poking himself in his eyes. “Make sure you check out the lenses of the scholars whose work you reference,” he advises. I begin to laugh at his joke but he turns my words on me. “You need to be serious,” he says. “Why don’t you read to me what you have written so far?” I begin. “In the spring of 2007, I acquired salmon eggs from a local federal fish hatchery and raised them in the school so students could watch the hatching process and learn from it. The eggs were stock of the Medway River watershed, which includes the Wildcat River. As the time approached to release the newly hatched salmon, Tina was asked by the community to

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tell me that Wildcat First Nation would host the release for the students and teachers. All elementary staff and students attended the event where three hundred salmon were returned to the river in a ceremony that included smudging, prayers, and drumming. Todd, Tina, shalan, and Jamie, as well as many other Wildcat community members, attended the release.” Crow peers over the rim of his glasses, looks at me quizzically and asks, “How does that tie into the research you’ve just completed?” he asks. I continue reading. “In discussions through the winter of 2008, Tina and I talked about repeating the salmon project again in the spring. Tina suggested that the entire project be situated in Wildcat First Nation. We discussed the idea with Todd and, in turn, he and Tina discussed it with community members. All agreed and we began to plan the project that was aimed at continuing to move an Aboriginal education agenda forward. “At the same time, I had completed my PhD course work and I was ready to develop a research proposal that would focus on Mi’kmaw education. In discussions with Todd, Tina, shalan, and Jamie, I decided that the salmon project we were about to undertake would be the basis of the research. Within the context of the salmon project, the research was to examine the dynamics of school educators and Mi’kmaw community members working together to centre and legitimate Mi’kmaw knowledge in education. Battiste describes ‘legitimating the voices and experiences of Aboriginal people in the curriculum’ and ‘recognizing [an Aboriginal worldview] as a dynamic context of knowledge and knowing’ as two strategies to decolonize education.2 This decolonizing work in education is referred to in other ways such as a ‘new educational consciousness,’3 ‘indigenizing education,’4 creating ‘spaces in education for making meaning and achieving respect for Indigenous knowledge,’5 and ‘animating the sites of postcolonial education,’”6 I explain.

Introducing the Research

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I turn away from the computer screen. “That’s all I have,” I say. “Is that it for chapter one?” he asks. “No, I need to decide what I will write about the methodology – Indigenous research methodology,” I explain. “Mayan researcher Vivian Jimenez Estrada defines Indigenous research as ‘applying the culturally-situated visions, understandings and directions necessary to engage in processes that ultimately facilitate and promote the well-being of Indigenous communities in a holistic manner.’7 The research was to benefit the Mi’kmaw community by using Mi’kmaw knowledge, pedagogy, and language in the development of education. My first obligation as a researcher was to the Mi’kmaw Nation and to the voices of Mi’kmaw people. I also privileged other Indigenous scholars and theories both in framing the research and in analyzing it.” Crow sits patiently while I type the words I have just said to him. I continue. “Within the broad frame of Indigenous research methodology, I used an autobiographical narrative approach. Narrative methodology is grounded and legitimated by Indigenous traditions of storytelling. Narrative inquiry has a sense of searching and continually reforms the inquiry throughout the research process.8 Storytelling is culturally significant as a way of knowing and as a way of telling.9 Indigenous scholar Margaret Kovach explains that there is an ‘inseparable relationship between story and knowing’ and thus between narrative and research.10 “Linda Tuhawai Smith, a Māori scholar of Indigenous education, lists storying as a possible research project.11 Tewa scholar Gregory Cajete explains that ‘story – in creative combination with encounters, experiences, image making, ritual, play, imagination, dream, and modeling – forms the basic foundation of all human learning and teaching.’12 According to Thomas King, a writer of Cherokee and Greek/German-American descent, ‘the truth about stories is that that’s all we are’13 and

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research that is about those truths is based on what the Hawaiian scholar Manulani Aluli Meyer describes as ‘respecting the telling of stories.’14 By using storytelling as a research methodology, I honour both Aboriginal traditions and the Ancestors.15 “In this autobiographical narrative approach, I establish myself not as the object of, but rather as the site of, the inquiry.16 This is consistent with an Indigenous research paradigm that is ‘structured within an epistemology that includes a subjectively based process for knowledge development and a reliance on Elders and individuals who have or are developing this insight.’17 “Kathy Absolon and Cam Willett, two Indigenous scholars in Canada, explain that ‘the only thing we can write about with authority is ourselves.’18 However, Russell Bishop, a professor of Māori education, cautions us about telling stories in what he refers to as ‘subjective voices.’ He writes that this ‘is not adequate because it ignores the impact that the stories of the other research participants have on our stories. Instead [as researchers] we need to acknowledge our participatory connectedness with other research participants and promote a means of knowing in a way that denies distance and separation and promotes commitment and engagement.’”19 “You learned how to integrate and validate Mi’kmaw knowledge in education just by telling a story?” Crow asks skeptically. “That’s all you had to do – just tell a story?” “Well, ‘experience happens narratively.’20 When I tell the story of the research experience, I am relying on Aboriginal pedagogy. A Métis lawyer and educator, Kathy Hodgson-Smith, explains that in addition to styles, methods, and strategies, pedagogy ‘[i]s also the epistemological/philosophical framework from which one approaches instruction.’21 Aboriginal pedagogy recognizes that there are many ways of learning and knowing: dialogues, observations, experiential learning, meditation, prayer, ceremonies, introspection, dreams, reflection, and storytelling,”22 I explain. “Like Roxanne Struthers, Ojibwe

Introducing the Research

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researcher and healer, I ‘prayed, dreamed, meditated, and listened to the spirits who provided guidance and direction on all components of the thesis.’23 I also talked to the co-researchers – shalan, Todd, Jamie, and Tina – and I participated in ceremonies. When I write ‘I,’ the ‘I’ is connected to ‘they.’24 “I kept a reflective journal where I recorded my observations, thoughts, concerns, insights, and dreams during the research. In it I included scholarly quotes that were insightful. I wrote in the journal at least three times a week for the duration of the research. In my reflections I considered questions such as: How can a group of teachers and community members work collaboratively to develop education that is based on Aboriginal epistemology and pedagogy? How can Aboriginal knowledge be legitimated in education? What are the challenges, barriers, and struggles to this work? How can we work to overcome those barriers, challenges, and struggles? My reflections were drawn from my experience of working to integrate Mi’kmaw knowledge in the education offered at our school, from my interactions with others involved in the work, through readings, conferences, and presentations that related to Aboriginal education, and as a result of my personal work to decolonize my mind and to further learn about Aboriginal education. “In the research I was challenged to acknowledge the linear logic of my own default thinking. When I was faced with the need to consider the coming together of both Indigenous worldviews and the Western/Eurocentric worldview in education, I found that the place between these worldviews is filled with confusion and contradictions. It is in the in-between space where we can move on from old stories and, through respect and reciprocity, work collaboratively to create and live new stories.” Crow looks at me. “Weasel would be happy to share some stories with you. He went to school and he could tell you about his experiences and observations of schooling. Weasel’s stories just might help you explain the research,” Crow offers.

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“Ah, don’t you remember that I am the storyteller? It might get a bit confusing if two of us try to tell a story,” I state. “So, if you are the storyteller, then who is the trickster?” Crow asks me. “Trickster? This is about research. It is not a joke,” I emphasize. “No joke! The trickster is the story character who teaches the lessons.25 You might want to get yourself a trickster who can help you learn more about the centring and legitimating of Mi’kmaw knowledge that you are talking about. Perhaps you could choose someone distinguished, someone dressed in black – maybe a high flyer.” I laugh and then, without giving him an opportunity to comment, I resume my explanation. “The research began in the spring of 2008 and continued one full cycle of the seasons. In the spring we did the salmon project and then through the fall and winter we extended our efforts to integrate and validate Mi’kmaw knowledge in the school by offering a Native studies course.” I stretch my legs, make tea, and settle before continuing my explanation to Crow. “I will tell you the story of the research, the tale of our experiences, as four stories. The first is ‘A Tale: The Learning Circle.’ This is the story that I most want to tell and the story that people most anticipate hearing when they ask about the salmon project. The second story is ‘A Tale: The Inside Out Circle.’ No one asks about this story and, when possible, I neglect to tell it. It is the story of the challenges we experienced when we took the collaborative work into the school. The third story is called ‘A Tale: The Outer Circle.’ In this story I try to reconcile the dichotomies of Aboriginal and Eurocentric worldviews. And the final story is ‘A New Tale.’ This story is about repairing our relationships in order to work together, work that results in a new story.”

Introducing the Research

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“You might want to advise the listeners that one story and one more story and then another story and another story is just one story,” Crow advises. “Thank you for telling them,” I say. Then I begin …

Chapter Three

A Tale: The Learning Circle

t h e sa l m o n p ro j e c t b e g i n s 1 I cannot tell you why the salmon left. Some say it was the dams on the river that blocked the salmon in the ocean, unable to return to their native homes to spawn and to bring new salmon life into the world. Some say it was the polluted waters. And still others remind us of the greed that has led to overfishing so that too few are left. I can only tell of this time as they come into our care and how we watch them hatch from their eggs. And while we watch, we gather in a learning circle and we tell the stories of the salmon and our people. We listen. We remember our ancestors and ceremonies. We reconnect to our people, to our traditions, and to the salmon. We repair and strengthen our relations with the life of the river. And when we return the salmon to the river we gather the people to drum, sing, and pray. I will tell the story here, stepping into the story circle in the east at springtime when the salmon were in their infancy and our work was in its infancy too. And when I close the story circle, you will know how ideas hatch just like salmon eggs and how they both grow, gaining other descriptive names as they transform. In raising and releasing the salmon, the people recognize and strengthen their relationships and they too grow and change.2

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p r e pa r i n g to wat c h t h e e g g s Watching salmon eggs hatch is a slow process. What do you do when day after day you look at the eggs and they are still … well, they are still eggs? And then when the salmon do emerge, they are so small that you have to stare intently for a long time in order to see anything at all moving in the water, just as it is sometimes difficult to see change take place and ideas emerge. Listen and I will tell you the story of the changes that happened as we watched the salmon. Several years ago, Todd worked as a watchman in the petroglyph area of Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site.3 During the tourist season, rain or shine, Todd was there, watching. He was also listening to the lake, the trees, and the petroglyphs themselves. He told me how he reconnected to this place of his ancestors.4 Like the salmon eggs, his growth may not have been apparent to anyone who met him briefly. And while the salmon eggs hatched, we, too, took a journey – a journey of recognizing and strengthening our relationships, and of remembering our ancestors and our traditions. The web of relations, throughout the research, extended our learning circle by bringing public school teachers and students into the Mi’kmaw community to join the community members in the learning activities that were based on Mi’kmaw teachings and taught in a way that reflected Mi’kmaw understandings of the world. We began the salmon project by learning how to create a good environment for the salmon eggs to hatch. It was a storage room in the basement of the Wildcat community store, the only community building in Wildcat and the only place where the twenty-five-litre tank could be placed. “Hey! Hey! Stop the story!” Crow interjected. I look at him nervously. “What’s wrong?” I ask.

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“You put the eggs in a tank?” he asks, enunciating each word loudly as if I might not hear or understand him. “Yes, we put the eggs in a tank. It was the kind used for aquariums. It was all glass so we could watch the eggs and there was a chiller inside so we could keep the water at eight degrees Celsius, the springtime river temperature. We placed rocks on the bottom of the tank to recreate the rocky river bottom.” “You put the eggs in a tank?” he repeats. “Rather than developing in their own habitat, you put them inside a container. Did you ask their permission?” “Ummm, I didn’t study that anywhere in the university ethics course,” I state hesitantly. “How do you ask an egg for permission?” Crow answers my question with more questions. “Did you not consider that salmon are beings with their own agency? Did you not pray and offer tobacco for their teachings?” I drop my head, unable to look at Crow. “Well, ah, no,” I confess in a low voice. “I … I … I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do now to make this right.” I lift my head but Crow is gone. As I deliberate on what I have done, or failed to do, my mother’s voice comes into my thoughts. I hear the words, “Say you are sorry.” It humbles me to think of a lesson that is so often given to children and how I now, as an adult, need to be reminded of it. I recall reading what Fred Metallic, a Mi’kmaw researcher from Listuguj First Nation, writes: “Acknowledgement can be as simple as offering tobacco. Offering tobacco acknowledges the gjijaqamij of the salmon, the spirit of the salmon.”5 Holding my tobacco pouch, I walk to the woodstove. I say a prayer, offer tobacco into the fire, and express my apology to the salmon. Crow has still not returned by the afternoon. I decide to continue writing the story and hope that I will be able to discuss it with him later.

A Tale: The Learning Circle

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The community decided on weekly learning circles in which to share knowledge and learn about the salmon. The learning circles were an experience of living, learning, and relationship. Each learning circle began with a smudge conducted by Todd. The smudging ceremony prepared the space for sharing and listening, as well as to remove negative energy. We would gather around the tank, smudge, observe the salmon eggs, and talk. After talking, we would share food, drum, and sing. Each week we welcomed various Elders and Traditional Knowledge Keepers to talk with us. They shared their knowledge. We could see that each opaque egg had a small black dot in it. This was the salmon beginning to grow and, as we patiently watched, those black dots became larger and they developed tails and heads. Just as the small black dots in the salmon eggs grew, our sharing grew and our stories developed as well. When a salmon emerged from its egg, the egg sac hung off the underneath of the salmon for some time – it was a food source. The sac weighted the salmon down on the bottom among the rocks. When the egg sac was empty, the salmon could swim and each one was then ready to look for food among the rocks. Crow’s Second Story “Do you know about Mi’kmwesu?”6 Crow asks. “She watches the spiders make their webs and from them she learns how to spin the very delicate threads that connect all things.7 Mi’kmwesu looks underground and there she sees how the Plant People hold hands beneath the Earth, giving one another strength and support.8 Mi’kmwesu listens. She hears Water travelling through the roots and along the threads, carrying the Message of Life to all things. Because she understands the ways in which all Life on Mother Earth is connected, Mi’kmwesu knows how to repair those connections when the threads of relationships are frayed and broken. When Glooscap calls

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Mi’kmwesu to mend the tale of education, she goes to Kespukwitk.9 It is there that she begins to replace and reweave the threads of relationships.” Crow laughs. “That’s a mighty Big Mess in the tale of education.” “Crow!” I said, “I am using Indigenous methodology, not Indigenous mythology. Mi’kmwesu is a spirit. I can’t put spirits in a study. My research will not be taken seriously.” b r i n g i n g t h e s c h o o l i n to the community Putting the salmon eggs in the school would have provided the maximum opportunity for all classes to have daily access to the salmon eggs but there would have been fewer chances for Mi’kmaw community members to be involved in the project. Community members would have been welcome but it was unlikely they would have participated if the salmon eggs were located in the school. As Mi’kmaw Elder, spiritual leader, former school administrator, and retired professor Murdena Marshall cautioned me: “Remember that it was only recently that Mi’kmaw parents were allowed to be in schools. Parents are still not comfortable in schools.”10 Placing the tank in the community gave community members liberal access to it and this location situated the learning project within the Mi’kmaw community. Tina and I discussed the possibility that non-community members may not feel comfortable visiting the Mi’kmaw community. She mentioned that recently a service technician was to do some work at her house. However, he was concerned that he was not “allowed” on the reserve.11 Such perceptions were a clear indication of a tear in the fabric of relationships among people.

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i n v i t i n g o t h e rs Tina and I discussed the project with the school’s staff. We individually invited their classes to participate both by joining in the learning circles and by visiting the salmon as often as possible. It was left with each teacher to determine how the project would connect to the types of learning themes or curricula that he or she was teaching in the respective grade levels. If a teacher asked me for ideas about connections, I discussed it with him or her. On several occasions a school bus filled with students came to visit the salmon. They too would gather in sharing circles and along the river to hear stories about the salmon that were told by community members and the co-researchers. As Māori scholar Robert Andrew Joseph writes, “Hearing one another’s stories validates experience and feelings and represents a significant step toward restoration of the injured person and the relationship.”12 The salmon are drawing people into relationship with them. I watch as participants welcome, celebrate, and make a place for the salmon. It is very easy to see how we are creating a physical space for the salmon in our environment but it is also important to make a space for them in our minds. The creating of mental space is about being open to what we can learn from the salmon and what we can learn from each other about the salmon.13 More and more people from the region were coming into the store to see the salmon. Todd, Tina, and I all began to realize that the non-Aboriginal community was also being drawn into the Mi’kmaw community and thus the project was becoming, as Todd said, “learning for everyone.”14 The salmon project was an opportunity and a means of engaging others in conversations about teaching and learning, and a path along which to move a Mi’kmaw education agenda forward. The

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learning circles were our gathering place and the salmon were our focus as we shared and discussed knowledge and values. t h e l e a r n i n g c i rc l e s In her writing, Jo-ann Archibald, a scholar from the Sto:lo Nation, describes that prayers, songs, and ceremonies like burning sweetgrass or sage will cleanse the mind/body/spirit. This prepares us to listen.15 The participants in the salmon learning circles would gather around the tank, smudge, observe the salmon eggs, and talk. After talking, we would share food, drum, and sing. Each week we welcomed various Elders and Traditional Knowledge Keepers to talk with us. They shared their knowledge, which would in turn inspire more sharing through stories. In the first circle Todd told the story of developing the salmon project and we both spoke about acquiring the eggs and what we knew about taking care of them. The talk then turned to others’ stories of salmon: catching them, eating them, seeing them in the river, and their decreased number compared to several decades ago. We all had stories. Those stories lead to other stories, perhaps about a gathering where salmon were eaten or about a fishing trip and the people on the trip. Métis scholar Judy Iseke-Barnes writes, “In telling stories we honor the experiences of Indigenous peoples and epistemologies and the contributions made to multiple, collective, and collaborative readings of our world.”16 She further describes storytelling as “a practice in Indigenous cultures which has sustained communities and which validates the experiences of Indigenous peoples and epistemologies.”17 I am watching the threads of interconnectivity being woven as we renew our connections to family, friends, and community. We are living the story of the salmon project and I felt part of the circle community. As American author Christina Baldwin explains, “Life hangs on a narrative thread. This thread is a

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braid of stories that inform us about who we are, and where we come from, and where we might go.”18 I felt the presence of the Ancestors today. They came into the circle through the stories of things they did and things they taught us. In recognizing them, we honour them. I reflect on the advice of Fyre Jean Graveline, a Métis educator: “we must invite the Ancestors and the other powers of life into our learning spaces.”19 I thank the salmon for creating this opportunity for us and I thank the Ancestors for guiding us. As well as the Ancestors, I feel the presence of other Indigenous teachers. When I read the work of Indigenous scholars, they teach me and, when possible, I share their teachings.20 m i ’ k m aw h e r i tag e On many occasions people spoke about their Mi’kmaw bloodlines – family relationships that had either been ignored or denied. Now their personal connection to the Mi’kmaw Nation was asserted through their grandmothers and their grandfathers. In the school there were many more students who were identifying themselves as Aboriginal. The number of students who self-identified as having Aboriginal ancestry tripled over the previous year. There were also more staff members who openly and more frequently discussed their heritage. This spoke to me not only of remembering but also of (re)membering the Mi’kmaw Nation. It is through the remembering of our traditions that people were remembering who they are – a recognition and a strengthening of relationships among people and a reclaiming of their lives. With this recognizing and reclaiming there was a (re)membering of the community, a bringing back of people who were claiming their relationship to their Mi’kmaw family and their place in the Nation. In an interview, shalan reads a poem she wrote that connects Mi’kmaw identity to the land. “Sometimes it takes three generations to return home.

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I’ve tracked the migration of eels and monarchs. They’ve taught me how.”21 r e m e m b e r i n g o u r r e l at i o n s h i p s I pondered that perhaps the remembering occurred because people had forgotten their relationship to the land, from which our culture and identity stem.22 We may have also forgotten our relationship to all the creatures of the land. Within the learning circle and our discussions of salmon, we were reminded of a core value of our lives. In Mi’kmaw Elder Albert Marshall’s words, “our [Mi’kmaw] teachings are based on the interconnectedness of all things.”23 “In accepting that we have always lived from our land,” writes Fred Metallic, “in accepting that the land has taken care of us, we also accept that the land is a gift given to us by the Creator. By acknowledging the land in this way, we affirm our relationship with all of its beings.”24 Today I felt as if we were weaving our life stories to the land and to the waterways. The salmon eggs have inspired us to remember the places along the river system that are special to each of us. I recall reading Cajete’s term “ensoulment” that expresses the affective-spiritual relationship that Aboriginal people have to the land.25 I think of Grande’s description of Indigenous pedagogies as “fundamentally grounded in the land.”26 So it is the land, and hence place, that are integral not only to our identity, but also to our learning. Cree scholar and educator Herman Michell helps me to understand that it is through our stories, shared in the learning circles, that we assert our identity and reestablish our connection to the landscape that reflects our lives.27 I am walking around my yard, thinking, when Crow lands on a nearby branch. “You look deep in thought,” he observes. “Oh, I’m just trying to figure something out,” I tell him. “Anything I can help you with?” he asks.

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“Oh probably, but it’s sort of embarrassing to admit,” I say hesitantly. “I, hummm. I … Well ah, I’ve been learning lots in the weekly circles. There are so many great stories and it’s good to see the salmon eggs slowly changing. It’s really great.” “So what’s troubling you?” he asks. “I just don’t get how I am supposed to have a relationship with a salmon. Am I supposed to buy it special treats like I do my dog? I pet my dog and cat but I don’t think I should try to pet a fish. I mean … it’s a fish. I only know two ways to relate to a fish. One is to catch it on a line and offer a prayer of thanks for giving its life so I can have food. The other is to buy it in a pet store, keep it in a tank, and feed it flaky fish food. How am I supposed to have a relationship with a salmon?” “Oh my!” said Crow while shaking his head. “I thought you were beginning to understand.” “Well, I do understand the part about being in the Circle of Life and that we are all interconnected. I understand that life needs to be in balance and that we shouldn’t overfish,” I added. “I get that, but saying that people are in a relationship with the salmon seems …” My voice trails off because I am unsure of the words to use. “You remember reading the words of Indigenous educator and theologian George Tinker?” he asks. “‘“We are all related” is not just a nifty idea. It is a way of seeing the world and living our lives. It is not merely a sentiment; it is a very real baseline of respect for all of our relatives.’28 That’s what it means to have a relationship with another creature – to acknowledge and enact one’s responsibility to another. Living in relationship with others isn’t just a good feeling or an abstract concept, it is taking responsibility for every aspect of your life because everything you do in your life affects other entities in the Web of Life. When you turn on a light switch or the hot water tap, do you stop to think that the electricity produced by the damming of the rivers means that salmon cannot travel those rivers to

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spawn? You need to think about how you accept your responsibilities to salmon, then you will begin to live in a relationship with them. Responsibility is inherent in relationship.” o u r r e l at i o n s h i p w i t h t h e sa l m o n Our shared stories included our knowledge of how the salmon are part of our lives. Mi’kmaw researcher Kerry Prosper writes that the “Mi’kmaq believe Kji-Niskam (a Great Spirit) created all things in nature equally therefore all creations should be treated with great respect. To ensure a proper balance with the environment, the Mi’kmaq practiced various traditions and customs.”29 One such tradition was described by the eighteenthcentury Mi’kmaq leader Arguimault: “It was a religious act among our people to gather up all bones very carefully and either throw them in the fire or into a river where beaver lived … All the bones of game we got from the sea had to be thrown in the sea so that the species would always exist.”30 The relationship between the Mi’kmaq and salmon is based in the concept of netukulimk, “the use of natural bounty provided by the Creator for the self-support and well-being for the individual and the community at large.”31 Albert Marshall describes the salmon as a “revered species.” He goes on to explain that, “Before the 1990s, they [Mi’kmaq] were not allowed to take it outside of their own communities. As a food it was not necessarily more important than other species. In addition to food, it was used in spiritual celebrations as an expression of gratitude to the Creator for what he gave to us.”32 In the learning circles, we spoke not only of our right to have a relationship with salmon but we also talked about our “obligations that need to be respected in order to maintain our relationship – in balance and good order – with the salmon.”33 Although it seemed like this gift from the Creator would last

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forever,34 the salmon population is now declining. Fred Metallic affirms that the big salmon, the grandmothers and the grandfathers, are not returning to the rivers. As an explanation, he writes that there is “a reason why they are ignoring you. It is a particular form of discipline.”35 This way of understanding the decrease in the salmon population is different than the Western worldview. These teachings were reflected in the learning circles when we spoke of the spiritual – both the life forms in the river and the spirit of the river water itself. One way of accepting our responsibilities to the salmon was to acknowledge the salmon and their role in taking care of our families and community. And so we prayed and offered tobacco, thanking the salmon for being at the centre of our learning circles and for teaching us. The salmon were with us a short time in order to teach us. Our intention to release the new hatchlings into the river was one way to celebrate their lives. Their presence in the river would be a way to replenish the river life. This would be a rejuvenation of the river spirit. Our talk about the river focused our attention on the land and our place on it. “It is the salmon that keeps us connected,” writes Fred Metallic. “The salmon arrives every spring and, with its arrival, we, the Mi’gmaq, 36 continue to live according to our ways: laws and practices learned over thousands of years. Life ways, ta’n getu telmimajultieg, are taught, shared, and practiced from one generation to the next.”37 We talked of the traditional Mi’kmaw teachings that tell us to not take more than we need and to not overfish. Many of us told stories of Elders sharing this teaching. My own story was of an Elder who once told me about her father taking her trout fishing. She said that she enjoyed fishing with her father. After they caught a few trout, he would tell her it was time to go home. She laughed as she told me that she would always ask if

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they could stay longer and keep fishing. She recalled her father replying that they had enough for that day and that they must leave some for the next day. As Albert Marshall reminds us, “It is our responsibility to ensure that these gifts will be available for future generations.”38 Every day I think of the salmon and all the teachings they are giving us. I feel more deeply connected to them, to all the people of the learning circles, and to this land. By accepting my place in the Web of Life,39 I acknowledge not only my relationship to all things but also my responsibilities to the salmon, to the children and grandchildren, and to all Life. In considering these responsibilities, I contemplate the impact of what I do, not only on myself and on my family, but also on all Life. I recall reading “let us not forget dams which not only destroy animals and their homes the forests meadows but they also heat us in directly proportionate ways to their destruction of life habitat.”40 What have we done to the river, to the salmon, and to other people?41 I contemplate the writings of William Mussell, an educator at the Sal’i’shan Institute, who provides a comprehensive description of the traditional way of understanding relationships. He writes: Relationship is a key value in Aboriginal cultures; one must at all times recognize the value of the other and demonstrate respect and a willingness to discover and honour uniqueness in a relationship, whether it is with people, land, creature, or the Creator. One is called upon to be open to learning and to become changed for the better by the other; everyone and everything is a potential teacher in the ongoing journey to wholeness. In relationship, one must be willing to take responsibility for the impact of one’s behaviour toward the other, as well as responsibility for managing and learning from one’s responses to the

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other’s behaviour. Each party in the relationship is equal in worth to the other, regardless of difference in age, knowledge levels, insight, or personal authority.42 t h e cyc l e o f l i f e The cycle of the salmon’s life begins in the river where they hatch from eggs. Their early life is in the river, moving downstream and then into the ocean where they live their adult lives. They return to their natal rivers to spawn, to lay eggs, and to begin the life cycle again. In raising and releasing the salmon, we became part of their life cycle as they became part of ours. Eels are also important to Mi’kmaw life. The life cycle of eels begins in the ocean, where they are born, and then they travel up the local rivers to live their adult lives. In the learning circles we talked of the similarities between the life cycles of the salmon and eels and their importance to traditional Mi’kmaw life – both as a food source and for ceremonial purposes.43 “All of life happens in a circle” was a common refrain as we talked. The learning circles themselves were symbolic of this circle of life and a reaffirmation of our interconnectedness. Spearing was a traditional method of catching salmon. Andrea Bear Nicholas, the chair of Native studies at St Thomas University, describes how a Maliseet fishing spear, a nikahkol, was taken in 1914 from a Maliseet man who was charged and arrested for fishing salmon.44 She writes that the spear was recently returned to its community of origin. However, the community members realized that “we are at least three generations away from knowing how to use such a spear, that we no longer had unpolluted waters or un-dammed rivers, that we have been stripped of most of the language needed for living off the land, and that we are forbidden now from fishing salmon at all.”45 In our learning circles, we talked of other fishing methods such as using nets and fish weir. This, in turn, led us to talking

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about the construction of weirs and where some of the weirs continue to exist along the river. The weirs were made of rocks placed in a river in a cone shape, with the end of the cone downstream. A net or basket was placed at the end of the cone to capture fish and eels. Weirs are not easily recognizable as they may be mistaken simply for rocks in a river. Given the nature of the weirs, as well as their size, they were not seized as fishing spears were. The weirs are tangible reminders of Mi’kmaw traditions and their continued presence is a testimony to the Mi’kmaq presence on this land, the interrelationship of the Mi’kmaq and the salmon, and the resilience of the Mi’kmaq. fishing rights In recent memory, eels have played an important political role in Mi’kmaw life. Frequently during the learning circles we discussed Donald Marshall Jr, the son of Grand Chief Donald Marshall Sr. In 1993 Marshall, from Membertou First Nation, was charged with fishing eels out of season. In 1999 the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the 1760 Treaty of Peace and Friendship that gave the Mi’kmaq the right to fish. Commonly referred to as the Marshall Decision, this historic ruling reaffirmed the traditional relationship between Mi’kmaw life and the land.46 In discussing the salmon project with me, Albert Marshall explained that what is even more important than treaty rights is the necessity of exercising our responsibility to the land and to the creatures on it.47 It is in accepting this responsibility that we reaffirm our identity as Mi’kmaq and fulfill our obligations in the Web of Life.

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ta l k o f t h e r i v e r During one learning circle we walked along the river shore. Todd talked about his memories of salmon in the river, how numerous the salmon were during the time of his childhood, and how big the salmon were then. Other people contributed their memories of catching and eating salmon and they shared salmon stories that had been passed on to them from other people – the oral traditions from Elders to the next generation. These stories connected the past and the present through memory and contributed to the recovery of Mi’kmaw traditions and life. Walking with Todd, we talked of our place here along the river and about the river system itself including the locations of rapids and the locations of still waters. Todd explained how travelling down a river can be a metaphor for our own life journeys; there may be smooth water just as there are calm times in our lives, there are fast moving waters when life is more hectic, and there are very difficult times that are like travelling over a large waterfall. Todd also described how water is poured on the Grandmothers and Grandfathers in the sweat lodge and how the steam cleanses us. I thought of the many ways in which water is part of our lives and how we must conduct ceremonies for it. A Mi’kmaw Elder explains a ceremony for the water: “I do ceremonies four times a year, just for the water,” a recognition of the “inalienable and inherent relationship [of the Mi’kmaw people with] the water, the fish, the land, and the resources.”48 The connection of ceremonies to the land is described by a participant in the report by the Indigenous Health Research Development Program: “[A]s Indigenous people, the directions for our actions is advised by the knowledge contained in our ceremonies and oral

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traditions. It is this spiritual relationship to a land that provides our moral guides and can help achieve or maintain harmony.”49 In the learning circle, Todd further described to us the water cycle and the seasons. He explained that in the winter the snow protects the Earth from the cold, in the spring it melts and the water washes everything, in the summer there is not much rain, and in the fall the rain comes back. He explained that in the Wildcat River there are places where the river water does not freeze in the winter. These are the places where people drew their water during the winter. Many people in the learning circle knew of these places in the river or they knew of similar places in other waterways in the area. Later in the week I visit the salmon eggs and afterwards I walk along the river to contemplate their hatching. They seem so small and they are all identical. I imagine three hundred children and the physical, as well as the personality, differences that would be recognizable to me. I smile in amusement, thinking that perhaps a mother salmon could tell the hatchlings apart but to me they are all the same. I silently admit to myself that they are salmon eggs and as much as I try otherwise, I cannot see them as individuals. I consider the countless numbers of goldfish that have, one by one, resided in a fish tank in my home. They all appeared the same in their lives of captivity, held in a tank for the enjoyment of my children. I feel agitated by my own disturbing thoughts so I sit on the river bank and let my mind relax. I watch the sun glisten on the ripples of moving water. I recite aloud a part of the American author Norman Maclean’s writing about his river experience: “I sat there and forgot and forgot, until what remained was the river that went by and I who watched … Eventually the watcher joined the river, and then there was only one of us. I believe it was the river.”50 A black object streaking through the sky towards the river shatters the tranquility of the moment. It disappears below the surface and it is only then that I recognize it as a crow. Wait a

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minute! Crows don’t swim! It couldn’t have been a crow unless the poor creature just dropped dead out of the sky and landed in the river. I rush to the edge of the water and wade in with the thought of rescuing it. The rocks are slippery. I concentrate on my footing so that I do not fall. Splash! I am under water, being pulled along by the river. I feel myself bumping against the rocks. I cannot breathe! I try to scream for help but my lungs fill with water. I realize that I am dying. I stop gasping for air. Everything is still. “Are you sleeping?” asks an old woman’s voice. “No, I am dead,” I respond. “You are in the world under the water,” she says. “Not the afterlife.” “No, I’m dead. People cannot breathe under water,” I explain. “Just open your eyes,” she says matter-of-factly. I comply and find myself face-to-face with a silvery black salmon. “You can call me Sister,” she tells me. “Nmi’s?”51 I ask. “Yes. We are all related,” she reminds me. And then she asked, “How are our babies?” “Babies? Do you mean the salmon eggs?” She nods. “It is funny that you should ask because I was just sitting along the shore thinking about how they all appear the same to me,” I explain. “Humans all look the same to me,” Nmi’s said laughing. “It is good to see the people repairing the threads between them as they meet to talk about us, but it is just as important for them to repair their relationships with us.” “What do you mean?” I ask. “People take from the rivers and the life in the rivers, but they don’t give back. They don’t reciprocate. I worry about my children and my grandchildren. Life is very difficult for them. I

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think seven generations ahead and wonder if our children will even survive.” I close my eyes to consider Nmi’s’s words. I consider all the things I take for granted in my life, all the material possessions and comforts that I have at the expense of others’ lives. What do I give back? How do I reciprocate? I wipe away my tears of confusion and when I open my eyes again, I am on the river bank. l e a r n i n g t h e l a n g uag e During the learning circles we also shared our knowledge of the Mi’kmaw language. Blackfoot scholar and educator Leroy Little Bear explains that an Aboriginal language is “a repository for all of the collective knowledge and experiences that a people, a society, or a nation has.”52 Those gathered in the learning circles were predominantly English speakers. We learned the Mi’kmaw word for salmon, “plamu,” and the words for salmon eggs, “plamue’l wa’wl.” In learning these words we began to build an important bridge between the Mi’kmaw language and Mi’kmaw consciousness.53 Marie Battiste describes Aboriginal languages as resilient because the spirit and socialization of these languages are embedded in the succeeding generations, even in the face of using colonial language. We also learned the Mi’kmaw word for sharing, “utkunajik.” As Kenny Prosper and researchers Mary Jane Paulette and Anthony Davis explain, “utkunajik is also a key aspect of the Mi’kmaq concept and practice of netukulimk, that is engaging respectfully and responsibly in all aspects of nature, including other human beings.”54 Michell describes the importance of sharing in the process of relationship building: “Sharing and caring also build relationships of trust allowing an avenue where poisons can be exposed and discarded as part of the heal-

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ing process. Sharing and caring must be done unconditionally without judgment as reflected in the spirit of the animals who do this with freedom and ease.”55 ta l k i n g a n d l i s t e n i n g There was much talking and much listening in the learning circles as participants respectfully listened to one another while stories were shared. Quoting a Cree manual, Evelyn Steinhauer, director of Aboriginal teacher education at the University of Alberta, writes: “Respect means you listen intently to others’ ideas, that you do not insist that your ideas prevail. By listening intently you show honor, consider the well being of others, and treat others with kindness and courtesy.”56 Over time, more people came into the learning circle and we got to know one another better. “When we are sitting in Circle, telling our stories, sharing our learnings through experience and our feelings, we are establishing relationships among the Circle participants at a depth uncommon in the Western educational context.”57 It was in the learning circles that we met, learned, and developed our sense of relationship through sharing knowledge – knowledge that was more important than that found in a book. In the learning circles we were connected through our relationships and we were whole. I am thinking of us as a group of story weavers, spinning threads from ourselves to one another, to the salmon, to the river, and to all life in the river and on this land. In the story weaving we are responsible to listen – an act of respect. And we are responsible to speak our truth – an act of sharing knowledge. It is not only that we speak, but that we also listen to others when they speak. I remember reading Jo-ann Archibald’s explanation that “patience and trust are essential for preparing to listen to stories.”58

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s p e a k i n g o u r t ru t h In a discussion about sharing ideas, Todd spoke of truth and its importance. He said, I have a responsibility to speak my truth as I know it. I have a responsibility to share the knowledge that I have. My father told me that he would speak his truth to people and although a person may not have listened to what he said, he had to speak anyway. People often do not understand; they may not be ready for that knowledge. His attitude was one of being responsible to share the knowledge and then leaving it up to the other person as to whether or not the knowledge was accepted. We are responsible for sharing our knowledge and for speaking our truths. We are responsible for sharing the information that we have and for doing so in a good way. Even if others do not listen, one’s truth must be spoken and then one must find a way to still work and interact with others.59 As Leroy Little Bear advises, “If you want to be part of the spider web of relations, speak the truth.”60 One of the things I noticed in the learning circles, where people accepted their responsibility to share their talk and to speak their truths, was that I listened in a different way. I did not listen in a way that filtered that which I agreed with from that which I did not; I simply listened. I tried listening the way that Archibald suggests we listen, with “three ears: two on the sides of our head and the one that is in our heart.”61 This is the protocol of the circle; there is a time to listen and a time to speak. In the past, I found sharing circles difficult because I worried about what I was going to say. I was learning,

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in these sharing circles, that there comes a time when a person has “been taught and it is time for you to speak.”62 I became comfortable sharing my truths so that they too were put into the circle with all the other truths. I became less self-conscious in the learning circles and with this I could more easily listen, with all of my ears, to the stories of others. Learning to listen, I was reminded of an Inuit man’s response to encountering an unfamiliar landscape. “I listen. I walk around it and strain my senses in appreciation of it for a long time before I, myself, ever speak a word.”63 This is what the salmon eggs and the learning circles taught me: to listen and to strain my senses in appreciation before I ever spoke a word. Through the stories that were told we were not only learning about salmon but also about one another. We were reconnecting ourselves to one another and to the Nation through our words. Words have power – the power to change, transform, heal, and harm.64 Métis educator Cora Weber-Pillwax says, “A person’s word is closely bound up with the story that she or he tells. A person’s word belongs to that person and in some instances can be viewed as being that person.”65 In the stories that we shared, we were experiencing other truths of the world, which opened up the learning spaces to Mi’kmaw understandings of the world. The sharing of our stories in the learning circles – the truth-telling – was an act of decolonization because Mi’kmaw knowledge and values were being voiced through those stories.66 The truths that were shared in the learning circles were not consistent with one view of the world. In reading Michell I learned how to understand these differences in truth. As he explains, “the Woodlands Cree have always respected different perceptions of truth because spirit lives and manifests in different forms throughout the cosmos.”67 As well as the notion that we are all responsible for speaking our own truths, I have often heard Todd say that he cannot speak for

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anyone else. Thus we are responsible for sharing our truth, telling our own truths and no one else’s. In Mi’kmaw, this is “ma’gisi’siwn ugjit wen piluwei.”68 I have been thinking much about truth and oral traditions. It seems to me that when we speak we face our community and we are immediately responsible for our words. The words of Kathy Hodgson-Smith come to me. She writes, “a speaker can more fully legitimize” her words, “more fully claim her authority or assert her intention” in person.69 The immediacy of speaking our truth means that we are accountable now, at the very moment the words are spoken. The more I think about this, the less I talk because I am being careful with my words. I have noticed that sometimes my pauses do not seem like thinking time as much as it is connecting time – an opportunity to join my thinking self and my feeling self, my head and my heart. I now feel more responsible for being true, not to one truth of the world, but to my own truth. I am no longer afraid that someone will dispute my truth because I offer it not as fact, but as a testament to my experiences in the world. And I am more accepting of the truths of others because I do not judge the words of others against one truth of the world, but rather I know them to be the truth of that person as he or she has lived and learned in the world. As others listen to the truths that I speak, I too listen and learn from their truths. I realize that the responsibility of sharing our own stories and respectfully listening to the stories of others is the basis of legitimating other worldviews. I reflect on how this sharing of truth is based on a different way of seeing the world than the classroom routine of giving students information to absorb. I recall the assertion of the Dutch-American author Tony van Renterghem that “the prime task for a teacher is to bear witness to the truth,”70 and I think of how this way of sharing truth is bringing all of the learning participants together in a good way. William Mussell’s description of a healthy relationship comes

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to my mind. It is “two or more people interacting at the same level and sharing information in mutually respectful and helpful ways.”71 silences As well as words, our learning circles also included pauses and times of silence when we had the opportunity to think about the story we had just heard or to consider what we might add to the conversation. Métis scholar Carole LeClair explains that “in the spaces of silence, those spaces where memory fails, the spirit of truth may also be visible.”72 Experiencing silence can initially be uncomfortable. I remember the long pauses in the conversations between my grandfather and me. During the silences, I would enjoy being with him, sharing time and space. Sometimes I would contemplate a story he had just told me and other times I would wait while he considered another story he might want to tell. As Archibald says, silence can create good thinking.73 My grandfather’s stories were about the lakes and rivers in the area. They were stories of travelling on the water and of hunting and fishing. He told me of the animals, fish, birds, and plants that he came to know. He told me of the people who travelled with him: family, friends, and other community members whose lives were entwined with his. The silences in our conversations were respectful spaces between us. I watch Todd and other Elders in the learning circles. I know that they have learned what Chickasaw lawyer and scholar Sákéj Henderson shared with others in a discussion of Indigenous protocols: “Generally, people rush in where there is a silence or a pause. You don’t have to do that, but if you want to do it, go ahead if you have something to say. But it does get uncomfortable because in the tribal world, there are long pauses between the next speaker.”74

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I was learning not only about the salmon, the waterways, and the land, but I was also learning about talking and listening, words and silence, and sharing and respecting. My connection to the people in the learning circles was growing through our shared talk as well as through our shared silences. “Are you taking up basket making?” asks Crow. “No,” I laugh. “I’m just playing with these willow sticks.” I am on the river bank where the willow grow in the spring. I have just picked several twigs and I am interweaving them. “Actually, I’ve been thinking more about interrelationship and how all of life works together. I’ve never understood it that way before this salmon project.” “Interrelationship is the fabric of life,” says Crow. “It is the interconnectedness of all things that is the pattern of what is called reality.” He picks up a single twig that I had not yet used for weaving. He bends the twig back and forth. “See how weak this one twig is?” he asks. “Now try to bend the ones you have woven together.” I do as he asks and find that it is difficult to bend them. “Life is stronger when we are joined together,” he states. “Look at the spaces here between the interwoven twigs,” he directs. “Those spaces are also part of the pattern of relationships. Even when there is physical distance between creatures, they are still interconnected with roles and responsibilities.” Crow flies off, leaving me to weave the willow branches and think more about the fabric of life. t h e vo i c e o f t h e sa l m o n i n t h e s p r i n g I was feeling more connected to the salmon and would dream often about them. Each time I did, I would write the dream in my journal when I awoke. From the River, we observed the People standing by the tank and looking at Our Eggs. Few talked to one another and we recognized that the threads of connection between the People

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were frayed and torn. While they gathered in learning circles, Mi’kmwesu opened the bundle of threads that she had collected from Grandmother Spider. We listened as the People shared their stories of life along the River. As they shared, Mi’kmwesu wove the threads in and out, repairing the holes in the fabric of their relationships. We knew these threads of connectivity were becoming visible to the People because we heard them talk of their Bloodlines, their Ancestors, and their relationships to all life on the land. And we smelled the smudge that opened each circle and we heard the prayers that closed each circle. Msit Nokmaq.75 t h e r e l e as e I lean over the bank, hold the cup where the water is moving with a slow current, and slowly tip the glass sideways, allowing it to fill with the water of the river. As it fills, seven very small salmon take to the water and swim from the cup into the river. Other people are also releasing the salmon they held in cups. After the release we sing, drum, and feast to celebrate raising and releasing salmon into these waters. Their short time with us has allowed us to come together to learn. We remembered our stories and traditions. We reclaimed our traditions and knowledge. The release was a rejuvenation, a rejuvenation of our spirits and the community in which we live. It was also a rejuvenation of the salmon as we put the young ones back into their natal river and, thus, it was a rejuvenation of the river as the life in it was being replenished. Raising and releasing the salmon was an experience that helped us, as Marie Battiste describes, get “in touch with [our] Indigenous consciousness and the traditions that inform and animate [our] intimate and spiritual selves.”76 I consider what I have learned about our individual spirits. Each individual person has a spirit that reflects the Creator’s purpose. I think of Wally Isbister, former director of the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technology, who asserts that each

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person is expected to be “diligent and observant” in finding that purpose.77 I reread Battiste who explains that “[c]reation endows people with sacred gifts that emerge in different developmental stages of their lives, slowly enabling them to find their places in the great cosmos and in their national traditions and ethos.”78 According to her, people learn about these gifts through transmitted teachings and through self-knowledge, which are equally important. Each person has an individual learning journey that informs the person about his or her gifts, capacities, and strengths. I now understand Battiste’s teaching that the journey is a “transformational process of learning that animates students’ inherent talents and capacities.”79 In the salmon release, we celebrated the salmon and their gifts to us: the teachings, the opportunities to learn together, the reminders of who we are, and how we are related. In recognizing our connection to all life on the land and the responsibility that each of us has, we acknowledge the dynamics of give and take and “action and counter-action.”80 I reflect on Sákéj Henderson’s teachings too. He explains that people are only one strand in the web of life and that we are dependent on other life forms for our survival. Humans, however, were created last and therefore we learn from those entities that are older and wiser than ourselves. This learning takes place through the observation of the natural laws of nature. These laws represent the Creator’s spirit enacted through balance, purpose, peace, and harmony. Humans, he writes, “exist to care for and renew the web of life, and therefore they must respect and value all the forces of life.”81 Maintaining balance and performing ceremonies are ways to sustain creation. I reread Leroy Little Bear’s words, “Renewal ceremonies, the telling and retelling of creation stories, the singing and resinging of the songs, are all humans’ part in the maintenance of creation.” He describes that in this way, Aboriginal philosophy is “holistic and cyclical or repetitive, generalist, process-oriented,

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and firmly grounded in a particular place.”82 We were on the land and we learned from it as we recognized and celebrated our connection to all things.83 The release of the salmon took place as the high water levels of the spring run-off were receding. The salmon had all emerged from their eggs, lived off the contents of the egg sacs that remained attached to them, and were then ready to be released so they could search for food on their own. The day of the release was an organized celebration of salmon life and a ceremony for them as they headed off to continue their life cycle. It was also a day of reciprocity as we acknowledged the salmon for entrusting their eggs to us, for bringing us knowledge, and for helping us to remember our traditions. The celebration brought together community members, teachers, students, Elders, and Traditional Knowledge Keepers. One of the day’s challenges was moving the three hundred salmon from the tank to the river. When the research team discussed this, Tina suggested that we each put several salmon into clear glasses and that every participant at the ceremony have a glass containing salmon to release. In this way, everyone present was responsible for blessing, ensuring the safe release of, and witnessing the next stage of the journey for the salmon. Each participant held a glass of salmon as we prepared for the ceremony. While holding the glasses, people closely observed the salmon, excitedly asking other people to observe their salmon. Participants walked along the river to find a safe place to release the salmon, and, while walking and looking for a release place, they also talked to the salmon. This was a most profound time as people and salmon bonded. Todd smudged the area, offered tobacco, and gave a blessing for the salmon in their life journey. Many people offered their own individual blessings, offered tobacco, and lingered privately in prayer before releasing their salmon. Jo-ann Archibald describes prayer as creating “a cultural learning process which

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promotes the principles of respect, reverence, responsibility, and reciprocity.”84 As this happened, I thought of how important these private times are; they are an opportunity to reflect on our connection to all other creatures. The release was followed by a gathering during which we drummed, sang, shared food, and talked. Before leaving the celebration, many people returned to the river’s edge to check on the salmon, some asking aloud for the salmon to return when they are big so we can have a feast. These requests acknowledged the reciprocity of life, the interrelationship that is symbolized by the give-and-take between us. We raised and released the salmon to fulfill their life journey, but we needed them to return to give us food for our own life journeys. It was through relationships and reciprocity that we acknowledged ourselves in the Sacred Circle. We had accepted our responsibility of caring for, asking for a blessing on, and releasing the salmon into safe places along the shore. The salmon would reciprocate either by giving themselves to us as food or giving themselves in another way to maintain the balance of all life forms. We connected with the salmon from the time of their arrival and even after the release we had a concrete sense of our interconnectivity to them. I thought of watching them hatch, observing them in the tank, the individual salmon that I released, and their journey down the river as we drummed for them. I recalled reading, “I knew I had found what I was searching for. What I was looking for all those years, was connected with that drum and with those Teachings that I heard and those songs and everything that was being done.”85 As the drums beat, I again reflected on my growing understanding of interrelationship; the way we are connected to the salmon, them to us, and how we are all connected to this place. I thought of my personal responsibility to take care of the river and the water and I realized that I also have a responsibility to continue to conduct ceremonies for the salmon. Salmon, for me, were no longer just a

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concept based on their physicality. I was now in relation, and by association, I also had a relationship with all of the other people who were involved with the project. On an early spring morning, I took my nine-year-old granddaughter, Laylia, canoeing across the lake. She asked me why mist was rising off the lake in front of the house. I considered how I first learned about mist and the spirit of living things. It was the Mi’kmaw teachings about mist and trees that I had learned from Jean Augustine-McIsaac, a Traditional Knowledge Keeper. She said that we can sometimes see the spirit of trees in mist form surrounding the trees early in the morning or late in the evening.86 In answer to Laylia’s question, I also considered a Western worldview – understandings of the world that are exclusive within the school system. It is an explanation that I can easily articulate, having been schooled in this way of knowing. I contemplated these two understandings of the world and how the knowledges are a reflection of certain orientations to the world, one emphasizing the spiritual and one stressing the technological. Mi’kmaw Elder Frank Meuse came to our school and told the students a story that he had borrowed from someone else.87 It was about a young boy who was constantly getting into trouble. When the boy asked his grandfather what he might do about it, the grandfather explained that the boy had two wolves living inside him, a good wolf and a bad wolf. When the boy asked which wolf would win, the grandfather said that it would be whichever one the boy fed. 88 The story reminds me of making choices about where we put our energies and how we orient ourselves to the world. In answering Laylia, I would legitimate a particular understanding of the world. We canoed across the lake and I shared with her the story of the spirit of the lake. I paddled and Laylia, hand outstretched, touched the mist and the water and we were part of the life of the lake. I offered a prayer of thanks for the water, the land, the day, and for my

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granddaughter. Canoeing and praying are ceremonies. They are ways of renewing and strengthening my relationship to the lake. Laylia too was part of the renewal of life and it is my responsibility to guide her in developing a relationship with the lake and all life surrounding it. In the days following Laylia’s question, I thought much about my teaching responsibilities at the school and the conflicts between my responsibility to teach the curriculum and my responsibility to the needs of the Mi’kmaw children and families. These were often competing responsibilities. As a grandmother, I was accepting my responsibility in teaching my granddaughter and reinforcing in my own mind a resistance to the curriculum that continues to colonize the minds of our children. I thought of this colonization in the way that educator Sharilyn Calliou, from Michel First Nation, describes curriculum: “markings made (un)wanted in public/private mindspaces.”89 vo i c e o f t h e sa l m o n at t h e r e l e as e The People watched as Our Young emerged from their egg sacs. We saw Mi’kmwesu reconnecting the threads from the People to Our Young and then she strung the threads along the River and into the Water so we too could be reconnected to the People and them to us. Mi’kmwesu braided the strands of thread together, making the connections stronger. Those who could see the threads could hear our voices. They shared the stories of our Elders passing on and how their bodies have nourished other life along the banks of the River. The People talked of our lives, remembering how we are born in the River and return to the River to give birth to our Young and to feed the People and all other life along the River. We asked the People to remember that we are all part of the Circle of Life. We reminded them to recognize the contributions of all to the Circle, to respect the gifts that

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guided those contributions, and to accept their own responsibilities to each other. Those who heard our voices told stories of how their Ancestors did not take more than they needed and how they gave an offering of tobacco to our Ancestors who, in turn, gave their bodies to nourish the People. We watched them gather with their Young and their Elders and we knew the ideas were growing through the teachings that were shared. We closed our time with the People with a Renewal Ceremony, celebrating the renewed relationship between us. The People sang and drummed to show their appreciation for our teachings. And as they drummed and sang, we reciprocated by performing a Salmon Dance, swimming together to demonstrate our gratitude for their care of our Young. Then our Young gathered in small groups inside glasses and observed the People who had taken care of them so that they would know the faces of those who had worked to reconnect themselves to us and us to them. We swam into the River and downstream until the drums and the heartbeat of Mother Earth became one. Msit Nokmaq.90 r e f l e c t i o n s o n t h e l e a r n i n g c i rc l e s It was after the salmon were released into the river that I reflected on the challenges of the project. The greatest challenge was inherent in the work itself. We were trying to centre and legitimate Mi’kmaw knowledge within a Eurocentric context, two worldviews that George Burns, a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, refers to as being “in paradigmatic clash.”91 Marie Battiste describes Indigenous knowledge as “far more than the binary opposite of western knowledge.”92 As Battiste and Henderson explain, “Schools still represent the hegemony of dominant Eurocentric knowledge, values, and expectations.”93 This reality was pervasive throughout the research and presented itself in every aspect of the work. We were

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working to privilege one knowledge system within the context of another – teaching Mi’kmaw knowledge within an education system that is shaped exclusively by a Western worldview. As I thought of these struggles, I remembered Jessie Sutherland. I met Jessie in 2005 when she was completing a master’s degree in the Indigenous governance program at the University of Victoria. Her research was focused on reconciliation in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal relationships, particularly those resulting from the history of residential schools. Her work, Worldview Strategies: Transforming Conflict from the Inside Out, is based on this research. In it she writes, “I became acutely aware that there was a tremendous amount of work yet to be done on the non-Indigenous side of our relationship – such as transcending collective denial, fostering collective responsibility, and learning how to build relationships of mutual responsibility.”94 Sutherland describes her own process as she “began to see more clearly how many of our strategies to resolve Indigenous– non-Indigenous conflicts were rooted in a Euro-Canadian worldview and therefore did nothing to transform the heart of our relationship – namely worldview domination.”95 She refers to the imposition of one worldview over another in education as “an extreme form of oppression” and she expresses the challenge of worldview domination as “how to shift nonIndigenous consciousness.”96 There were several aspects of the research that eased our work in the face of the Western worldview domination. One key was the salmon project and the salmon themselves as they brought us together and taught us. Hereditary Gitksan Chief Gisday’wa writes that “animals and fish are viewed as members of societies, which have intelligence and power, and can influence the course of events in terms of their interrelationship with human beings.”97 We focused the learning on this creature

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with which we could be in close physical association and to which all participants in the learning circles could relate. Another significant feature of the research was that every person involved with the project had the opportunity to bond further with the salmon by releasing some of them into the river. The participants’ familiarity with the salmon and the opportunity for each person to release some of them highlighted our human interconnectivity with the fish, thus reinforcing a Mi’kmaw worldview. A third strategy to address Eurocentric worldview domination was the location of the fish tank in Wildcat First Nation, which validated the community as a centre of learning and legitimated Mi’kmaw knowledge within the project. The community brought the learning activity to life by welcoming both salmon and school staff and making a place for them. The project placed the participants in a learning environment situated in close proximity to the river, the habitat of the salmon. Mi’kmaw knowledge was further legitimated by having community members directly involved in the teaching. With the salmon project located in Wildcat, the community was responsible for hosting the learning as well as for drawing the school to the community instead of the usual situation where teaching takes place in the school. Brenda Ireland, an Anishnaabe-Cree scholar, writes that “rural communities are built on interpersonal relationships and educational changes will be more successful if they engage in an ‘inside-out’ approach which builds on these relationships.”98 Little Bear describes the involvement of community as “a key aspect in the education of Aboriginal peoples. Because Aboriginal people understand the world in terms of relationships, the inclusion of community in the learning process of Aboriginal people is fundamental.”99 Tina explained that school staff and students coming into the community to learn gave the

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community members the feeling that they had something to share. She said: The salmon gave us a connection as community members and revitalized the community. We nurtured the salmon. It was a like a rebirth or a beginning. Frank100 used to tell me that when he was a boy the river was teeming with salmon. You could look into the river and see them. When we released the salmon, it gave us hope that the rivers will be alive again. It brought people into our community. It gave us a new sense of ourselves as Mi’kmaw people; as a community that had something to offer. We had knowledge to share with others. It was the rebirth of the community.101 I understood this location of learning in the Mi’kmaw community and the positive response from the community as addressing the theoretical need, which Indigenous teacher and scholar Sandy Grande describes, of Native students and educators to have “a pedagogy that cultivates a sense of collective agency as well as praxis that targets the dismantling of colonialism, helping them navigate the excesses of dominant power and revitalization of indigenous communities.”102 The enthusiasm for the salmon project extended beyond Wildcat First Nation and into other Mi’kmaw communities. Todd told me that other band councillors asked him if they too could get salmon eggs and run a project.103 Not only were we learning from the salmon but others wanted an opportunity to learn from the salmon as well. The salmon project provided many possibilities for reciprocity and sharing among all the participants, most notably through storytelling. The focus on salmon was relevant because the salmon are a part of the life of the river and they gave a context to

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the project to which Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people could relate. All participants lived on the land surrounding the river and most had personal knowledge or stories to tell of their involvement with salmon or the river in some way. Most importantly there were the stories and the related teachings from the Elders. Although some of them, such as Frank Jermey and Charlie Labrador, had passed, their teachings lived on through those to whom they had given those teachings. By sharing the stories they passed on to others, who in turn shared them, the stories provided “intergenerational communication of essential ideas.”104 Hawaiian author Leilani Holmes refers to knowledge that is passed through generations as “blood memory.”105 Todd, Tina, and Jamie all shared such teachings within the learning circles. Elder Frank Jermey’s and Elder Charlie Labrador’s stories were being told and their spirits were with us. I reflected on the “interconnectiveness”106 of all things to further consider the salmon project. It is this concept that helped me to better understand how the threads that connect all Creation were repaired and strengthened during the work. It was the interrelationship of all things within the Circle of Life – the sharing, the respect, and the ceremonies that were all essential contributions to balancing the relationships within the lives and consciousness of all those who participated in the work. The research conducted was to examine the dynamics of school educators and Mi’kmaw community members working together to centre and legitimate Mi’kmaw knowledge in education. Together we had learned about the salmon, told stories, listened to one another, shared food, learned, and released the salmon. To simply be together and share in the salmon project was a sign of improved relationships amongst the people. Our collective participation in learning that was based in Mi’kmaw understandings of the world was a cause for celebration. What I knew was that Wildcat community members were welcoming

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hosts of the salmon project and I also knew that school staff and students came into the community and learned along with community members. It gave me hope that there were ways to continue to build on this positive development. the end “You found the answers to your questions and they all lived happily ever after. The end,” offers Crow. “That’s what you’re supposed to say when you finish telling a Once Upon a Time story – The end.” “That wasn’t a Once Upon a Time story,” I retort. “Sure it was. Everyone is eating up that story. Just raise some salmon and invite everyone into a Learning Circle. They will all get along, tell a few stories, and live happily ever after.107 Now, how about another story?” “Another story?” I question. “You know, the one that came after the salmon project,” responds Crow. “Maybe later,” I offer. “I don’t want to tell another one just yet. I am going to sit here and think for a while.”

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“What’s that?” Crow asks with a tone of impatience in his voice. “What’s what?” I ask. “The blank page? Why are you wasting the life of a tree with an empty page?” “Silence is difficult to convey in a written story because fluid text does not adequately communicate the pause that is required to signify silence. Therefore, I took the liberty of reserving a single page to signify a pause for silence,” I explain.108 “You’ve taken the life of a tree to signify silence,” he asks incredulously. “What about your relationship and your responsibility to the salmon?” “What about it?” I ask. “We are talking about trees now, aren’t we?” Crow sighs and shakes his head. “Have you not stopped to consider the importance of trees to the salmon?” he asks. Without waiting for my answer, he continues. “Trees hold the banks of the river in place, they provide shade from the hot summer sun, their leaves drop into the water and feed the larvae, and the salmon eat the larvae.” “Well yes, I know about the food chain and the ecosystem,” I say. “Maybe you only know the words,” he suggests sarcastically. “Maybe you live inside your head!” “I know that I have much to learn,” I admit. “But silence has become so important to my learning. It is only when I sit silently that I can hear the sound of the river and the voice of the salmon. I have learned to listen more and talk less. I want to share the silence with others but I don’t want to needlessly harm the trees. I am confused. I need to take a walk,” I say as I head outside. I begin to wander among the pine trees that surround my house. I trip over a root and stumble before regaining my balance. “That’s it,” I think to myself. “It’s about balance. If the teachings of silence are important enough to use a blank page,

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then I have to acknowledge the life of a tree that helped to convey that message.” I reach into my pocket and take out the small pouch of tobacco. I offer a prayer of thankfulness to the trees for providing paper on which the words of this story are written. And then I thank them for the wordless pages that remind a reader of the power and the importance of silence. I place the tobacco at the base of a pine tree and then I sit in silence and listen to the trees.

Chapter Four

A Tale: The Inside Out Circle1

“Hey Mom, look at this,” Chkupan says as she comes through the door. She smiles and hands me a black ash basket. She just arrived home from her first basket-making workshop. I look at the somewhat lopsided basket and return her smile. “Good job,” I say. “I know it’s a little crooked,” she says, laughing. “But it is my first one. It’s hard to weave it tight together and straight. I made lots of mistakes.” “We learn from doing and from living life,” I tell her. “Often, in mainstream culture, mistakes are considered errors that should be avoided. Mistakes reflect negatively on the person making the mistake. However, mistakes are understood differently in the Indigenous world. One of my teachers, Ojibwa educator and scholar Sandra Wolf, told me that in the Indigenous world, ‘We learn as children that mistakes are sacred because they remind us that we are not the Creator and we can’t take responsibility for everything that happens. We learn by making mistakes. Indigenous learners are trial-and-error learners.’”2 “I think I’ll leave my basket right here,” Chkupan says as she sets the basket in the centre of the table. “It’s a good reminder about learning.”

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m ov i n g o u r c o l l a b o r at i v e wo r k i n to t h e s c h o o l Fall was when we extended the salmon project into the school to base our teaching more in Mi’kmaw knowledge. Rather than taking the school into the community, we welcomed community members and community stories into the school. This raised concerns about the relationships between school staff and community members. Would community members be comfortable and willing to go into the school to share their knowledge? How might any prior negative school experiences impact the traditional teachers? Would staff accept community members as traditional teachers? Would community members’ knowledge be marginalized or contested? Jamie offered to help in the school and in the fall he came to the school weekly. In a discussion with him about the tensions between the school and the community, he offered the following suggestion: When there is friction between people we need to sit down and talk about it. Everyone needs a chance to speak. We cannot look at the participants in work such as the salmon project as Native or non-Native. We all want to teach the youth. We all want to make life better for others. But our community has to heal. Teachers can help us heal by teaching our history in the schools. We talk, we teach, and we heal.3 I reminded myself “successful teaching and healing depends on clear intentions.”4 I considered our work, our research, and the question asked by Mohawk environmentalist and midwife Katsi Cook, “why else do research, but to heal and protect our People?”5

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I am thinking more about healing and how I can contribute to the healing that so clearly needs to happen. We cannot have healing without respect and we cannot have healing without giving the individual or the community the space – the respectful space – and opportunity to tell their stories. I recall Mi’kmaw filmmaker Catherine Martin’s words that the telling of a story is a way to begin the healing process. She describes storytelling as “one of the most powerful methods that I know to help begin a dialogue over what many have been silenced about.”6 I think of how much Mi’kmaw history has been ignored and hidden by the history courses in the public school system and I think of these words from Daniel David Moses, a First Nations poet and playwright: “it is not like you can change the truth.”7 Mi’kmaw history is what it is, even when those stories, those truths, are not told in the public schools. Jordan Austia Watter’s comment comes to my mind: “Every bloodied-nose that resulted from a racist conflict impressed upon me the dangers of the school’s silence.”8 Today I realized that in addition to our responsibility to tell the truth, we also have a responsibility to provide the opportunities to break the silence so these truths can be told. Is that what healing is about? Is it telling the story and having it heard?9 Our work in the school was one way we could contribute to healing and restoring the community. Little Bear explains “the inclusion of [Indigenous knowledge] in curricula will go a long way to restoring and maintaining the integrity of a people and its culture.”10 What we were doing in the school was important, just like the salmon project situated in the community had been important. We were working to decolonize education, which Battiste describes as a process that includes raising the collective voice of Indigenous peoples, exposing the injustices in our colonial history, deconstructing the past by critically examining

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the social, political, economic, and emotional reasons for silencing of Aboriginal voices in Canadian history, legitimating the voices and experiences of Aboriginal people in the curriculum, recognizing it as a dynamic context of knowledge and knowing, and communicating the emotional journey that such explorations will generate.11 m i ’ k m aw s t u d i e s In Nova Scotia high schools, Mi’kmaw Studies 10 is the specific senior-high course that intends to raise the collective voice, expose the history of injustices, and legitimate the voices and experiences of the Mi’kmaq.12 I was excited to teach this course in the fall. It was only the second year that the course was offered in the school. North Queens is a small rural school with about sixty-five students in three senior-high grades (10, 11, and 12). The low student enrolment results in limited course offerings to seniorhigh students. There are a number of required courses for graduation, including the requirement to complete one seniorhistory credit. Mi’kmaw Studies is one of three possible credits that meet this requirement – Canadian History and African Canadian Studies are the other two. Canadian History 11 was, until 2007, the only senior-high history credit offered at the school and it is often mistaken by students, parents, and teachers alike as “the” required history course as opposed to “a possible” history course. For five years Tina and I lobbied to have Mi’kmaw Studies offered in the school, suggesting that it be taught every year or every other year. I made it known that if a student was interested in Mi’kmaw Studies any year that it was not offered, I would be willing to supervise the course as an independent study. We also talked to students and parents about the course but most were convinced that Canadian History was the only

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way to meet the graduation requirement and that Mi’kmaw Studies would be either an elective course or an additional course. More students than expected registered for the Mi’kmaw Studies course. Some of them identified themselves as having Mi’kmaw ancestry, some expressed an interest in the course based on their impressions that it was about life in our region, and still others declared that they chose to take Mi’kmaw Studies because it was “easier” than the Canadian History course. I welcomed them all and recognized the course as an opportunity to continue to move an Aboriginal education agenda forward. However, I was concerned that the course was perceived as easier, a general notion that was both spoken and unspoken throughout the school. As a solution to this dilemma, I set out to equate it to Canadian History. I was thinking, with singleminded determination, that equating the course to the legitimated Canadian History would, in turn, validate the knowledge within the Mi’kmaw Studies course. I organized this equivalency by creating a course outline and assessment protocol for Mi’kmaw Studies that paralleled Canadian History and I asserted my commitment to this process in a standard form letter sent home to each student’s parents at the beginning of the course. With this equivalency structure in place, I began teaching Mi’kmaw Studies using Aboriginal pedagogy.13 Apparently, I did not hear Crow laughing at me. He knew, as Nishnaabekwe writer and educator Leanne Simpson writes, that “how you learn is as important or perhaps more important than what you learn, and Indigenous educational programs must use culturally inherent ways of teaching and learning.”14 As an educator, I have read the scholarly writings of Ray Barnhardt, professor emeritus at the University of Alaska, who works in developing Native education. However, while teaching the Mi’kmaw Studies course, I did not recall one of Barnhardt’s notes of caution. He reasons that schools can draw upon the rich Indigenous knowledge in their locale but that “this requires

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more than simply substituting one body of knowledge for another in a conventional subject-based curriculum – it requires substantial rethinking of not only what is taught, but how it is taught, when it is taught, where it is taught, and who does the teaching.”15 r e t h i n k i n g t h e “ w he n ” a n d “ w h e r e ” o f t e ac h i n g m i ’ k m aw s t u d i e s When I began teaching the course, I knew that the “when” and the “where” of the teaching would be the same as it was for Canadian History. The course was scheduled to be taught in a forty-three minute period right after the mid-morning break within a specified classroom. However, I intended to vary the location of the teaching by taking students outside as often as possible for classes. I would also take them on frequent trips to Wildcat First Nation and possibly to other places if I could arrange such trips. The trips away from the school would also vary the timing of the course because any such trip would take more than the forty-three minutes scheduled for the course. I tried to organize the outings to coincide with the beginning and ending of the school day since most of the students travelled to and from school on buses. Requiring them to arrive at school earlier or sending them home later would privilege students who could make alternate travel arrangements. r e t h i n k i n g t h e “ h ow ” o f t e ac h i n g m i ’ k m aw s t u d i e s I relied on several descriptors of Aboriginal pedagogy as I thought about how I would teach the course. I understood Aboriginal pedagogy to include “learning by observation and doing, learning through authentic experiences and individualized instruction, and learning through enjoyment,”16 learning by

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“doing/experiential learning, guided practice, detailed observation, intuitive analysis, cooperative/group learning, listening skills,”17 and learning through storytelling.18 I did not want students to simply learn facts about Mi’kmaw history. I wanted them to experience Mi’kmaw life through authentic personal experiences that would include talking circles, ceremonies, musical events, and listening to the stories and teachings of Elders and Traditional Teachers. r e t h i n k i n g t h e “ w h o ” o f t e ac h i n g m i ’ k m aw s t u d i e s I was excited that the course was being offered in the school. However, I had not taught it before and I knew that I would learn more about what strategies worked and which ones did not work as the school year moved along. I also knew that I would be learning along with the students. I had a vested interest in having Mi’kmaw knowledge as part of the teaching in the school and I intended to make the most of the opportunity. r e - e x a m i n i n g t h e “ w h y ” o f t e ac h i n g m i ’ k m aw s t u d i e s The Mi’kmaw Studies curriculum may be viewed as an example of how the Mi’kmaw Nation is represented in the public schools. One could argue that it is an opportunity to learn from a Mi’kmaw perspective and that it is a move forward in legitimating Aboriginal voices in the public school curriculum. However, as Cree scholar Willie Ermine from Sturgeon Lake First Nation writes, “any bridges that have been built in attempts to facilitate cross-cultural understanding have effectively been appropriated by an established consciousness of Eurocentric thought that is intolerant of pluralism and difference as repre-

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sented by Indigenous Peoples.”19 Mi’kmaw Studies embodies a hope that the school system will open up spaces that acknowledge and promote Aboriginal ways of knowing the world, but, as I found out, the course faces what I felt at times was an insurmountable constraint – the hegemony of a Eurocentric worldview. As I thumbed my way through the curriculum guide for the course, I thought of Battiste and Henderson’s description of provincial curriculum: “The mandated provincial curriculum continues to mirror a centre that is not Mi’kmaw. It is a colonial curriculum with outcomes aimed to serve the needs of colonial governments.”20 It was implicit in my teaching that we would be taking up decolonizing work, but I realized that students were not aware of such work. Perhaps after being educated in a school system that is founded entirely in a Eurocentric knowledge system, the students did not have any understanding of what decolonizing work is. It seemed as if they expected the pedagogy of the course to be the same as all others they had experienced. It was in the disparity between what they were expecting and what I was teaching that we were all challenged. I struggled to engage them in critically examining the assumptions of their knowledge. Their struggles were apparent in their resistance to this work. When we teach based on transferring information to students, we may make gains in training their minds to amass great amounts of information. However, we do not necessarily challenge them to think critically. Most of the students I have encountered have learned how to be “good students” and ultimately how to pass from one grade or course to another, whatever the requirements are for such transitions. But I also see the insidious rules of teaching students to accept rather than question; to consume rather than challenge. I continue to reflect on what it means to teach and what it means to know.21

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Crow’s Third Story “I want to tell you the story about Weasel and the running test,” Crow interjects. “The story goes like this: That Teacher tells Weasel it is time to do a running record.22 Weasel can run. He can run fast. He will run all around that Big Mess in education. He will show That Teacher. See Weasel run. See Weasel run fast. That Teacher says, ‘Sit down!’ ‘Hey,’ says Weasel. He thinks, ‘This must be a test for advanced runners.’ He sits on the chair and, with his feet gripping the floor, he moves that chair all around the room. That Teacher writes ‘failed’ on Weasel’s report card. That Teacher wants a meeting with Those Weasel Parents. ‘That Teacher Talk is all about Teacher tales. That Teacher will have to listen to our tales before she will know how to talk with us,’ says Uncle.” Crow laughs. “Those tales are very different.” “Crow! A storytelling approach to research does not mean that you make up animal characters and have them talking through the research.” “You’ve got me talking!” he notes. “Yes, but you are different. You are part of the data. You were with me through the whole research process. You talked to me and taught me. I didn’t make you up.” v

My excitement at the opportunity to teach the course caused me to be somewhat naive about the challenges that existed. I was aware that the method of teaching is just as important as what is taught. Many of the classes were conducted as sharing circles. Often there was silence on the part of the students. I wondered if it was the “respectful silence” that First Nations researcher and teacher-educator Susan Dion encounters when she speaks to teachers and students about the relationship between Aboriginal people and Canadians; a silence she explains as “grounded in uncertainty regarding what to say.”23 It was clear

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that students were often uncomfortable with the silence. Mohawk lawyer and educator Patricia Monture-Angus writes, “Aboriginal people understand that silence is not a bad thing and silence can mean a lot of things. A lot of things can be said without opening your mouth. The silence itself did not make me uncomfortable, but the fact that everybody else in the room was uncomfortable with the silence made me uncomfortable.”24 No one spoke on the first round but, as I had learned from Frank,25 I thanked the students for the moments of silence they gave us. There was a ripple that went through the room. It was a different spin on speaking at school. I was not demanding they talk in an attempt to answer a question. There was something new in this teaching.26 t e ac h i n g t h e c o u rs e My Teaching My excitement about teaching the course quickly turned to fear when I was faced with a classroom full of students, a curriculum guide, and my own experiences and thoughts. On some occasions I found myself giving information and sliding into a “teaching about” mode. I reminded myself that the role of Indigenous educators is to challenge schools as agents of colonialism and carve a place for our own traditions as legitimate subjects of curriculum, but on our own terms.27 I became overwhelmed by the task of teaching the course, coping with the challenges, and wondering if I was “getting it right.” I thought of Walter Lightning, of the Sampson Cree Nation, who wrote, “I have no idea what I am doing.”28 In an attempt to make connections, I turned to the land on which we all lived. We discussed our connections to the land and places that are special to each of us. The students made maps of the land and the waterways, marking those places that were important to each individual. For many, the maps were of

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fishing and hunting areas and this, in turn, lead to discussions of these activities as essential to survival for those who live close to the land. We watched Is the Crown at War with Us?29 It is a film about the struggle of Mi’kmaq to fish even after the Marshall Decision. The film highlights how fishing is a way of life and how it contributes to Mi’kmaw identity. In the film an unidentified woman states, “I will continue to fish and I will continue to hunt and gather. It’s not just a livelihood; it’s a way of life. That’s what defines us as Mi’kmaw.” I discussed this statement with the class. It was a starting point that flowed into a discussion of our interrelationship with the land. Through this talk the students better understood the importance of knowing and understanding treaty issues as they impact many aspects of current political, social, and economic reality of life of the Mi’kmaq. I assigned students a project to interview Elders in their extended families. I asked them to learn about Elders’ personal relationships to the land and to collect family stories that related their families’ identities to the land. This strategy of making personal connections to the land, history, and lifestyle encouraged the students to engage with the course and mitigated their resistance to participate in the learning. Rocks are a part of the landscape in this region. The slate rocks along the shore of Kejimkujik Lake are carved with petroglyphs: a reminder of the Ancestors who canoed these waterways and lived along the shore. The students and I learned more about the petroglyphs and studied reproductions of them, as well as petroglyphs found elsewhere in Mi’kma’ki. Several years ago, Todd made artistic reproductions of the petroglyphs by etching the symbols in slate rock. I did this with the students. In gathering the slate rock, I offered tobacco to take the rocks to the classroom and I thanked the rocks for the teachings they would give us. I sat in silence as I etched those repli-

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cas along with the students. It was the drawing of the sailing ship that caught my attention – a ship bringing change. I thought of a conversation I recently had with a child and transcribed in my journal. “Hi, what’s new?” I ask the ten-year-old. He is my friend’s son. His family live in a small First Nations community and the boy attends the local public school as do the children in my community. I haven’t seen the boy in a while and I want to catch up on his news. He tells me about a speech he has to give next week in his class and all the research he has put into the topic. “I’m doing it on an explorer,” he tells me. “David Livingstone. He discovered some parts of Africa,” he says. “He discovered parts of Africa?” I ask. He reiterates what he has learned. I make another attempt. “Weren’t there people living in those areas already? Maybe he found areas that the Europeans didn’t know were there, so they said he ‘discovered’ them,” I suggest. “Well, he discovered the Nile River,” he continues. “Really?” I ask incredulously. “Wouldn’t the people who lived there have known about the river?” “Yes, but he found it,” he replies. After five years in school, he can now negate the experiences of other Indigenous peoples who experienced colonization just as his own Ancestors experienced it. The colonization of his mind continues on a daily basis at school. His mother later tells me of the talk they had after I left, a talk about people referred to as “explorers” and why there are stories of them “discovering” places around the world. It is a difficult lesson and one that risked putting the child’s imminent speech into jeopardy. She tells me of the work she did to help her son rewrite his speech and how the task seemed onerous to a child who previously felt prepared for the presentation. This is just one of our ongoing shared stories of mothering; stories

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of un-teaching and then re-teaching our children in an effort to ensure that their knowledge and understanding of the world is strong.30 In 2003 I worked with Nicholas Whynot, my nephew and a senior high Mi’kmaw student at the school, to do an independent study in Mi’kmaw Studies. At the time the course was not offered so I used the independent study option in order for him to acquire the credit. As part of that study, Nicholas and I worked together to make a video where Nicholas interviewed Wildcat First Nation community members. These videotaped interviews were later edited by shalan and produced as a video entitled A’tugwet: Discovering the Culture that Is Immune to Time. I used this video as a teaching tool in the Mi’kmaw Studies class. Many of the students in the class knew the participants and the locations shown in the video. Their familiarity made it easier for them to consider the stories that were told and to connect to the teachings in the video. It was only after much discussion that they could begin to understand that those stories reflected Mi’kmaw values and perspectives. The video gave voice to Mi’kmaw experiences at the school as the participants spoke about their years of schooling in the very building where the students in this course were sitting and learning. It seemed thought provoking for the students to see familiar people speak about their thoughts, feelings, history, and skills from a Mi’kmaw perspective. I have been thinking back to the learning circles during the salmon project. Some of the people in the circles recognized other circle participants, but they did not know one another well. It was in the learning circles that we got to know one another personally by respectfully listening to and sharing our stories. I think of Christina Baldwin’s words, “in the act of listening to story, we accept an invitation into experiences that are not our own, although they seem to be. Story weaves a sense of

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familiarity.”31 It was through listening that we came to know one another, to learn from one another, and to share in the knowledge of each other. This helped me realize that “relationship,” the name of that connection, is about the action of “relating to.” I thought back to the times in the learning circles when someone was explaining or telling something and another person would respond, “I can relate to that (feeling, idea, or concern); I understand.” When someone is able to say “I can relate to that” or “I know what you mean,” they are relating to one another. When we “relate to,” we are actively “in relation with.” I thought about being in relation with others and I recalled a talk I attended at Lakehead University where Mohawk professor emerita Marlene Brant Castellano, a member of the Interagency Advisory Panel on Research Ethics, quoted Willie Ermine, who was also a member of the panel, “Ethics is about how we treat one another. It is about relationships.”32 I research Brant Castellano’s writings and read, “In the world of Aboriginal knowledge, a discussion of ethics cannot be limited to devising a set of rules to guide researcher behaviour in a defined task. Ethics, the rules of right behaviour, are intimately related to who you are, the deep values you subscribe to, and your understanding of your place in the spiritual order of reality. Ethics are integral to the way of life of a people.”33 Sharing the Teaching In addition to my own teaching role, Tina, Jamie, shalan, and Todd also joined me in teaching Mi’kmaw Studies. Their presence and their teachings legitimated Mi’kmaw knowledge and pedagogy in the course. Tina’s role. Tina was in the Mi’kmaw Studies class three times a week. She talked to the students about hunting and fishing and spoke about members of her own family members who

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continue to fish to sustain themselves. She also talked to the students about her uncle, a World War II veteran, who lost his Indian status as a result of his war efforts. Many of the students had grandparents who served in the war and they could more easily understand Tina’s stories about her uncle. Tina also spoke about many aspects of the Indian Act and how it has profoundly affected her family. Learning about the Indian Act was not simply information that they were to take into their minds. Tina made the Act personal. As a result, the students could more easily understand it and its implications for someone they knew and cared about. Jamie’s role. Jamie came to the Mi’kmaw Studies course once a week. He smudged, drummed, and sang with the class. All students were excited to participate in drumming. The studentmade drums were from a project a few years earlier when Todd came into the school to demonstrate drum making. The drums had never been painted so the Mi’kmaw Studies students learned about petroglyphs found within the Mi’kmaw Nation and then, in an art project lead by Tina, they painted some of these petroglyphs on the drums. Although Jamie taught the students many songs, the most important song that they learned to sing and drum was the Mi’kmaw Honour Song. The song is about honouring and respecting ourselves and our Nation. A Mi’kmaw Grandmother speaks of the Honour Song: “I find it’s a song that promotes respect and a lot of people respect it.”34 I listened to Jamie explain the song to the students and then I understood that the song asks people to come together and help one another. 35 I later wrote in my journal: The song teaches us and strengthens our spirits.36 In the spring, Bear River First Nation invited the Mi’kmaw Studies class to a Mother Earth Gathering in their community. It was an opportunity for the students to participate in smudg-

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ing, dancing, and talking circles. They learned from the many Traditional Knowledge Keepers who were present. Mi’kmaw Elder George Paul, from Metepenagiag First Nation, explained to the students how the Honour Song came to him in a dream and how he knew this was a song for the Mi’kmaw Nation.37 It was a memorable day for all of us as we sang and drummed the Honour Song with him.

kepmite’tmnej ( HONOUR SONG )

Kepmite’tmnej ta’n teli-l’nuulti’kw Let us greatly respect our Nativeness Nikma’jtut mawita’nej My people let us gather Kepmite’tmnej ta’n wetapeksulti’kw Let us greatly respect our historical roots Nikma’jtut apoqnmatultinej My people, let us help one another Apoqnmatultinej ta’n Kisu’lkw Let us help one another according to the Creator’s Tel-ika’luksi’kw ula wskitqamu’k intention for putting us on this planet

Eia hei yo Weio hei hai ya (repeat)38

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As I listened to the students sing the Honour Song, I thought of the words of a Cree Elder, shared by Mary Sasakamoose and Irvin Waskewitch: “songs are an expression of the spirit, he says, songs are ‘the spirit making sound – through voice.’”39 Rose’s role. Rose Meuse, a Mi’kmaw language instructor from Bear River First Nation, came to the class and offered basic language instruction. We gathered in a circle, where, as Anishinaabe scholar and teacher Paul Bourgeois describes, “the line between teacher and student becomes blurred sometimes when teacher and student become involved with teaching and learning.”40 In language classes I struggled, more than the students, to pronounce words correctly and then to remember what the words were when I wanted to use them. Rose made learning the language fun and taught us the language for things with which we had a relationship – animals and family. Little Bear reminds us it is through language that knowledge is transmitted from the older generation to the younger,41 and in learning the language, we learned more about those relationships. “Language embodies the way a society thinks. Through learning and speaking a particular language, an individual absorbs the collective thought processes of a people.”42 I learned more than language from Rose. One day she began the class and about ten minutes later a Mi’kmaw Studies student came into the classroom. Unlike the response that many (school) teachers would have given the student about being late, Rose simply thanked him for joining the class and continued teaching. Her response spoke to me of respecting the student and considering his personal autonomy. In respecting him, Rose strengthened the thread of connection between them. Shalan’s role. Shalan conducted storytelling workshops about fire with the class. At the first workshop, she came into the middle of the sharing circle wrapped in a fur blanket. She was

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Mi’kmwesu, telling us the stories that only Mi’kmwesu knows, stories of the creatures of the woods and how fire is part of their lives. In later workshops we created stories by going around the sharing circle and everyone adding a part. The stories, although of our own creation, were based on traditional style and reflected much of what we were learning. Even the most reluctant of students would add an eagle’s call, the beating of a drum, or a moment of silence into the story line. Stories teach children how to live well because the stories help children understand the worldview of their people as well as their purpose in life.43 Todd’s role. Todd contributed to the class in another way. As a Traditional Knowledge Keeper, Todd has kept alive the skill of making traditional birch bark canoes. At this time, he was building a birch bark canoe in his shop and we travelled there regularly to learn about canoe building. The canoe was constructed of spruce and covered in birch bark. Todd began by explaining to us why the birch bark canoe is so important to the Mi’kmaw Nation and then showed us a very old birch bark canoe that his grandfather made. Todd told us how he had gathered the birch bark for the canoe and how the absence of very large birch trees in our area makes it difficult to get a large piece of bark. The birch bark pieces were tied together and then tied onto the gunnels with spruce roots. Todd explained how he dug for these roots. He took us outside where he demonstrated the soaking of the roots and the boiling of them in a large kettle over an open fire. He then gave each of us an opportunity to strip the bark from the roots and to split the roots. Inside his shop we all had the opportunity to sew the bark together and to learn about covering the seams with pitch. The final step in making the birch bark canoe was to insert the ribs. We watched as Todd steamed the spruce ribs, bent them, and then put them into place. The class was invited to

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the canoe’s launch on Aboriginal Day. I stood on the shores of Kejimkujik Lake, watching Todd paddle the canoe. It was on the shores of this lake that Todd worked as a watchman protecting the petroglyphs. It was here that he reconnected to his Ancestors, and in teaching the students how to make a canoe he shared the knowledge of those Ancestors with us. Elders and Traditional Teachers. Welcoming Elders and Traditional Teachers into the classroom was an opportunity to celebrate their knowledge and to honour them, even though “[t]he white western paradigm of formal education mitigates against the involvement of Elders in formal education.”44 On one occasion I mentioned that, if Todd agreed, we might learn about the place of fire in the Mi’kmaw Nation. A student asked me why Todd needed to agree. I realized that she perceived classroom teachers as the authority on what is to be taught, although she had a vague notion that the curriculum guidelines come from the Department of Education. I explained to her that it is important that we ask the Elders about what is being taught to ensure that such teachings are acceptable and that the particular information and knowledge are appropriate to share in the classroom. I wanted to ensure that we were sharing knowledge in a respectful way. I explained to the students that it is important, in the context of Aboriginal teachings, to ask for the guidance of the Elders as they are the knowledge keepers. They will guide not only the sharing of knowledge but they will also advise on who, when, where, why, and how as it pertains to the knowledge sharing. Burns emphasizes the importance of “meaningful involvement of Elders in formal schooling as a new form of emancipatory praxis whose aim is emancipation, self-determination and self-government within the larger Canadian context.”45 Throughout the Mi’kmaw Studies course, the approach of having many Elders and Traditional Teachers in the class and

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looking to them for guidance in the teaching turned this class – in an otherwise typical public school – inside out. It challenged the legitimacy of the educational authority, the content, the pedagogy, and the concept of teacher. In this disruption there was an opportunity to consider the legitimacy of Mi’kmaw knowledge and values. v

“Mom, will you braid my hair before I go to school?” Chkupan asks. “Sure,” I respond. She hands me her hairbrush and elastic and then sits on a chair. I brush her long hair and then separate it into four strands. She reminds me that she is playing a soccer game today and that she needs her hair secured. “Mom, Matt was at our school yesterday and talked to the kids about Mi’kmaw culture,” she says in reference to Todd’s son Matt. “He told us how he had to make a complaint to the Human Rights Commission so he could keep his hair long in cadets.” Matt kept his hair in a long braid, which represented his cultural values. However, the cadets had regulations about hair length. The Human Rights Commission ruled that Matt had a right to keep his traditional hairstyle. “It’s wonderful that Matt shares that story,” I say. “There are often struggles that people face in maintaining their cultural values. It is admirable when people remove such barriers for others,” I conclude. I finish the braid and give her a hug before she heads out the door for school, out into a world where our youth are often challenged in maintaining their Mi’kmaw identity. Respecting Individual Gifts What I noticed about the importance of working collaboratively with Todd, Jamie, shalan, Tina, and Rose was that each person’s contribution was recognized and respected. All of us worked to

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open up opportunities and to make connections to reflect a Mi’kmaw worldview and the Nation. We each did these things in our own way. We each had our own style of diplomacy and we had different ways of connecting with people. When we worked together we were open with one another about what we were doing. This enabled us to connect to one another’s work and to spin the web of connections even larger. In addition to supporting one another to further benefit children and youth, we also all learned from one another. This is part of the reciprocity in our collective relationship – supporting one another and learning from one another. For example, Tina has a great rapport with students so she can often make connections with them in a way that none of the rest of us can. I can speak to teachers about curriculum. We often individually initiated communication with either students or teachers in order to facilitate the other person joining in and becoming part of a longer conversation; Tina made pathways for me and I made them for her. Not only did the Traditional Teachers bring their knowledge to share with everyone, but we as a group of learners also shared our knowledge both within the sharing circles and in the class in general. It was in this way that I appreciated the gifts of the various teachers. Shalan explained to me how she came to celebrate the gift of a colleague through a reference to her own struggles working in an environmental organization. “I’ve worked with her for three years and it is only in the last two weeks that I have come to realize the gifts that she has. Now I have learned to work with her in a new way. I have learned to consider her gifts and my gifts and how we can work together for the good of our community. And now it is going better because she brings her gifts to the job and I bring mine and we work together.”46 “Sounds like everyone got along perfectly,” observes Crow.

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I sensed sarcasm in his tone. “We did work well together,” I affirmed. “There must have been times when not everyone agreed?” he inquired. “There really wasn’t anything to disagree about. Our decisions were always about how something might work best. What I noticed is that we all gave one another space to try new ideas. It always seemed to be more a matter of supporting one another in our efforts rather than agreeing or disagreeing about whether or not to do a particular thing or to do it in a particular way. “However, I did learn respectful ways to bring other points of view into a discussion. For example, I noticed that Todd did not say ‘no.’ Instead, he listened and considered what was being said. At times he would talk about other ways of looking at something or doing things. This is important because it says something about relationship, about sharing information, ideas, and knowledge, and it says something about playing a role in the learning circles. This approach speaks to how we can listen to the truths of others. It speaks of being open to what others have to say. I learned from his example.” c e n t r i n g m i ’ k m aw k n ow l e d g e in the school Mi’kmaw Studies was the focal point of a Mi’kmaw presence in the school and was a place to validate the knowledge inherent in this learning. The course created a reason and a place for a smudging area that was accessible for anyone who wanted to use it. It was in the Mi’kmaw Studies class that students learned about and had the opportunity to smudge. The Mi’kmaw Elders and Traditional Teachers who came into the Mi’kmaw Studies class provided the opportunity to reach out into other classes and curriculum areas with Mi’kmaw knowledge. We informed

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other teachers that our guests were available to visit other classes. This enabled us to continue to find the spaces where Mi’kmaw knowledge fit or was welcomed by individual teachers. “When are you going to tell them about the things that were not going well?” inquires Crow. “I’m getting to that part,” I respond. “Are you going to tell them that you were struggling? Are you going to tell them that those struggles were coming from negativity?”

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“Why the silence?” he asks. I whisper, “This is ‘the kind of silence we are confronted with when we face the unspeakable.’47 I do not know what to say or how to say it. My silence is my ‘survival strategy.’48 It was not until I read Marie Battiste’s plenary address at the 2004 conference of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education that I understood something about my own silence.” I slowly read the words to him. We have found that teachers who attempt to bring forward the oppressive historical and contemporary experiences of Indigenous peoples in Canada through such courses as Native Studies and social studies find that breaking the silence of oppressions is fraught with pressures and emotional forces damaging to the lecturers themselves and to First Nations students. The resistance of white students who do not know this history counteract with guilt, anger, denial or racist justification for continued colonial privilege. In Native Studies history, as well as in courses such as antiracist education, teachers and professors find that Indian-white relations is constantly contested, and treaties thought irrelevant, a form of ‘passive violence,’ making the work of Indigenous academics demanding, difficult, and embattling on all sides.49 “I never want my silence to be interpreted as me being complicit with such passive violence,” I say to Crow. “But, like Marcia Guno, a member of the Nisga’a Nation, ‘I have to pick my battles of when and where it is safe to use my voice. Sometimes I choose to be silent because either I am too tired to try and ‘educate’ others, or because I know that my voice will fall upon ignorant ears that cannot hear me; and sometimes, my silence is simply a form of resistance.’50 “I was trying to find words and give meaning to the mounting negativity that I felt inside myself, negativity that I was be-

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ginning to project outwards onto others. I wanted to blame others, identifying the places of resistance with people’s names. I became frustrated not only with the struggles, but with my own style of dealing with them. I did not want to meet anger with anger because this was negativity feeding on negativity. It is ironic that at the same time I was coming to understand more about the importance of interrelationship, respect, and reciprocity. The contradictions inside me fueled my frustrations.” I thought back to the Aboriginal Cultural days that Tina and I had organized at the school on many occasions and similar events that I had arranged in many other schools in which I had taught in the past. Why did they seem to work well? Certainly the demonstration of skills, both craft and technical, by Aboriginal people is readily accepted in public schools as cultural activities. Aboriginal people who do beadwork, make baskets, or build canoes may be sought after as their cultural knowledge is tangible and easily fits within a stereotypical image of “Indians” as portrayed by the media.51 Perhaps these one-day events were a welcome change from the routine of schooling. They were fun, they were informative, and students often got to take something, such as a bracelet, home with them. I was even more concerned that rather than challenging the Eurocentricity of the school, these activities could unwittingly contribute to a colonized view of the Mi’kmaq. I’ve noticed that there is much conversation in school about how to manage a school and a classroom, how to implement a curriculum or initiative from the Department of Education, how to measure language (reading and writing) ability, how to measure mathematical ability, and the nature of learning styles. As the Race Relations, Cross Cultural Understanding, and Human Rights liaison between our school and the central school board office, I have been involved in many workshops that discussed how to make our schools more tolerant and how to bring multiculturalism into our schools. But I have never been in a workshop where the intent was to question the Western worldview

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and its domination of our curriculum. I speak, but I am not heard. I consider how to string my words together in a different way, how to be more articulate. I now realize that it is not my words, it is the “cognitive imperialism” that shuts me out. It is the turmoil that would occur to the order in our society if teachers began to question the assumptions underlying the public school curriculum. I continue to speak in hopes that one person will hear me and join the conversation to pry open a space for other ways of knowing, other truths.52 I reviewed the salmon project in my head. It was not based on a demonstration of cultural skill but my creeping cynicism convinced me that perhaps educators could have understood the project as a field trip. It was interesting and informative and everyone got a break from school for the day to participate in an activity that could easily be rationalized within a science curriculum. Certainly the care of the salmon eggs and the release of the salmon were positive learning experiences. However, in speaking my truth, there were very few classes that participated in the project. There were very few who took up the invitation – really, only two teachers came with their classes. There were also the students who were members of the environmental club, an extra-curricular group that has a keen interest in environmental issues. They came to the salmon project and regularly participated in the learning circles. As a course at the school, Mi’kmaw Studies challenged knowledge and demanded validation in the teachings it offered. As an option alongside other Western knowledge–based history courses, Mi’kmaw Studies could easily be marginalized and the teacher and students who were involved in the course could also be marginalized. I thought of Linda Tuhawai Smith’s description of how Indigenous research can be excluded and dismissed: “The research community has a number of terms which are used to good effect as exclusionary devices to dismiss the challenges made from outside the fold. Research can be judged as ‘not rigorous,’ ‘not robust,’ ‘not real,’ ‘not theorized,’ ‘not

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valid,’ ‘not reliable.’”53 I recognized that this is what schools can do to Aboriginal education initiatives, dismiss them as “not real,” “not up to standards,” “not relevant,” “not educational,” “not structured.” So, perhaps my cynicism and its companion – negativity – were understandable. Perhaps there was reason to feel frustrated and discouraged. Crow’s Fourth Story “Did I ever tell you about Weasel getting fed up with school? He is so frustrated that he leaves school. Weasel wants to get away from that Big Mess in education so he gives up on that tale and those promises and he starts for home. Principal finds Weasel and takes him right back. ‘You’re in Big Trouble,’ says Principal. Principal calls Weasel’s Parents. ‘Weasel is in Big Trouble,’ says Principal. ‘He made a Big Mess in the tale of education. Big Messes might be OK for Weasel tales but they are not OK for the tales of education. You are his parents. You tell Weasel not to make Big Messes in the tales of education.’” Crow laughs, “That Big Mess is getting bigger.” “Crow! I am writing you out of this study. Go somewhere else!” t h e s t ru g g l e to t e ac h In teaching Mi’kmaw Studies, I was frustrated by my lack of knowledge, which was magnified as I became painfully more aware of how colonized my own consciousness was. The course was finally in the school, but I struggled with how I was teaching it, how it was being received, and the overall impact it was having, or failing to have, in the school. I was also teaching grade 8 science. I wanted my teaching in this class to also reflect Mi’kmaw knowledge and worldview. I have no formal training in science and the double challenge that I took on, of teaching the course as well as attempting to teach it from a Mi’kmaw perspective, overwhelmed me. I did not have knowledge to

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share in either Aboriginal or Western worldview. I felt that my only choice was a default strategy: teaching the science course curriculum from a Western worldview. This situation frustrated me, but it also helped me to appreciate how difficult a task it is to ask teachers to reflect an Aboriginal worldview in their teaching when they themselves have no knowledge on which to draw. When schools do not have a collaborative working relationship with Aboriginal communities, it means there are also no Elders or Traditional Teachers to support such teaching. As the school year progressed, I became more exhausted. Reading Jean Graveline, I was reminded that “It takes time, patience, and perseverance to teach in Traditional ways.”54 I had no energy left for the work that was my passion. “What are you doing?” Crow asks with an amused tone in his voice. He stares at me standing inside a partially woven basket. “Are you trying to hide in a basket?” “I’m tired and I have no energy left for the work that is my passion. I am cocooning myself in this basket,” I reply. “Mi’kmaw artist Ursula Johnson told me how she wove a basket around herself as an art project when she was at art college. I wanted to try it.”55 I continue the weaving, now at shoulder height, and I attempt to bring it to completion above my head. “Do you remember when your first child was born?” Crow asks. “A woman never forgets that,” I say. “It was a very long, exhausting labour.” “Yes, transformation can be a long and demanding process,” he concludes. I sit down in the bottom of my basket. “I have no idea what to do about my negativity,” I confess. “Negativity is blocked energy,” he responds matter-of-factly. “When you hold negativity inside you, it blocks the flow of your energy just as dams on the river block the passage of the salmon. Smudging and prayer will help to take away your negativity.”

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I recall the words of a Mi’kmaw Elder: “I let sweetgrass be feathered over my entire being for spiritual cleansing and allow the smoke to carry my prayers into the heavens. I am a Mi’kmaq, and this is how we pray.”56 The prayers and the smell of the sweetgrass calmed my mind. I follow Crow’s advice to smudge at the beginning and end of each day. In February 2008 I attended a conference of the Indigenous Cooperative on the Environment hosted by Bear River First Nation. It was there that I met Elder Besha Blondin from the Dene Nation. She explained that people who are angry will often direct their anger towards someone else and that rather than taking on that anger, she gives it back to the person.57 On other occasions I have heard Elder Frank Meuse say that we cannot be responsible for carrying other people’s emotional burdens.58 I talked to Todd about my negativity.59 He reminded me to smudge both before and after I work. The prayers and the smell of the sweetgrass calmed my mind. While I smudged, I remembered my connections to the land and all things on it. I recalled Todd saying that his father described the land here as needing to heal.60 Even though I was exhausted and in need of my own healing, it had never occurred to me that all of life, at times, may need to heal and repair. If we humans negate our interconnectivity, then perhaps we absolve ourselves of any responsibility in the healing of other entities. I realized that even though the land needs to heal, I can still learn from it and from all the creatures on it. t h e wo o d t i c k s to ry I reflected on the salmon project and the way in which it helped me to feel more connected to all things in the Circle of Life. I thought back to the time I was talking to Todd inside the store after the salmon release. A student, fearful of wood ticks, found one on her arm and asked Todd to remove it. Todd held it

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between his thumb and forefinger for quite a while as we talked. As a child I had learned to tear wood ticks in two pieces as a way to destroy the small but generally loathed creature. Todd did not have much for fingernails so I offered to tear the tick in two for him. He answered that he was going to release it outside when he left. It was such a simple statement and yet it spoke so powerfully to his personal sense of interconnectivity and the importance of all creatures in the Web of Life. I realized that not only was I disconnected from the wood tick but that each one I have come into contact with met a violent demise, which is all the more perplexing since I neither dislike nor fear wood ticks. When I read the words of Cree graduate student Ida Brass, who explains respect as “to take care to never mistreat any form of life,”61 I knew that I did not respect wood ticks. Respect has always been a word that easily rolls off my tongue and out of my mouth as I constantly remind students to respect themselves, each other, and their surroundings. The very small wood tick caused me to think deeply about my interactions with all entities in the world and to examine how I see myself in the web of interconnectedness. It is easy to talk about the Sacred Web, but how do I live it? My perceptions of my place in the web are reflected in my responses to every other life. If I do not see myself in relation to the wood tick, then my actions toward it deny and further destroy the connection that does exist. I know this in my head and yet I do not live it. I read Kathy Hodgson-Smith’s words: “In the Sacred Circle of Life, seeing oneself in relation to all of creation is an individual act, governed by one’s own judgement of responsibility and respect, reflective of individual knowledge of the life force.”62 I realize just how little I know – how very little. I now realize that when I teach about any aspect of life with which I am disconnected, I teach in a way that negates any relationship, teaching about the entity as a thing to be dissected and objectified. I now recognize that how I understand the Sacred Web is

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the foundation of my learning and my teaching … but I also realize that this recognition may only be in my head. I need to live it as well as “know it.” c o n n e c t i o n to t h e l a n d I thought of a ceremony several years ago, when we gathered to plant a tree in honour of Todd’s father, Charlie Labrador, on the very land that Charlie identified as needing to heal. This is the land around Kejimkujik Lake, a land used, as Todd explained to me, “since time immemorial.”63 The land was later used as the site of a fishing and hunting lodge, and then appropriated as a national park. It was here, close to the burial grounds within the park, that Todd planted the black ash tree in memory of his father. At the planting ceremony, we gathered to nurture and nourish life on this contested land. The notions of gathering, nurturing, and nourishing life were the same three concepts that were present in the salmon project. We gathered in the learning circles, nurtured the salmon eggs as well as our own spirits, and provided nourishment to heal the relationships between the members of the Mi’kmaw community and people in the school. Bear River First Nation councillor Carol Ann Potter says, “Now it’s time we applied our knowledge to the land because I think it’s our role as First Nations people, as Mi’kmaw people, to be healers of the land, to be part of the land.”64 I remembered Jamie describing his connection to the land: “my roots are so deep that I cannot be moved. We are all connected like tree roots and we are all family.”65 In Mi’kmaw, this is “tet tle’ iawultigw” meaning “we belong to this territory.”66 In working to heal the land, I was reminded of my connection to it and to all the creatures on it. I thought about the interconnectivity of all life and my responsibility to my relationships. In remembering, my spirit was nurtured and my place in the Sacred Circle was reaffirmed. Thus the land was a source of

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healing and rejuvenation for me. However, there seemed to be a gap between my personal life and practices and my efforts and abilities to teach Mi’kmaw Studies. I thought of how little I understood Mi’kmaw teachings of the world. I understood enough to want education to change for my children, my grandchildren, and for all Mi’kmaw children. I did not know enough to write a curriculum based in Mi’kmaw knowledge but enough to occasionally do an interesting project – organize a series of Aboriginal Day workshops led by Mi’kmaw Elders and Traditional Teachers or to create the salmon project – but not enough to teach the Mi’kmaw Studies class without sometimes feeling as if I had slipped into a Eurocentric style of teaching “about” the Mi’kmaq. I felt trapped in a Eurocentric thinking pattern and I knew that before I could work for changes elsewhere, I had to make changes in my own thinking. i n v e rt i n g m y m i n d Willie Ermine explains how he inverts “everything being discussed to see what the inversion produces,”67 a process similar to Graveline’s acknowledgment and interrogation of her own “internalized acculturation.”68 I decided to interrogate my own consciousness to see what I might learn. I reconsidered my cynicism and frustration. Even given my concern that the Mi’kmaw knowledge inherent in the salmon project could have been subsumed within the Eurocentric curriculum and that participation in the project could have been rationalized as a field trip, it was reasonable to suppose that the teachers who did participate had a good heart and an open mind to the Mi’kmaw teachings and that they were willing or interested in joining the circle to develop Mi’kmaw education. I reminded myself that inviting staff and community members to participate was a respectful way of welcoming people into

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the circle. Those who accepted the invitation, be it one person or many people, were there with a genuine interest and willingness to participate. I recalled the many Aboriginal events I have attended over the years where an Elder or Traditional Teacher would say that it did not matter if there was one person in the room or if the room was full, they would share their stories with those who came to listen. I realized there was a part of me that always wanted to do more, to push the work, to have things happen now. I discussed this with shalan and she responded with knowledge passed on to her from an Elder. I was thinking about the time scale … how you and I want things to happen much faster … we know where to go and how to get there … but the communities need more time to develop and grow, and heal, and build capacity. We are walking the line between patience and complacency for change. We must build patience into our approach, while seeing that it is the ideas themselves that are the catalyst. As we work, we must understand that seemingly slow moving change may meet the needs and challenges of the community. We can’t push too much or too fast because ideas themselves have their own time. That’s what I have learned.69 This sounded much like an Elder reminding Brenda Ireland that colonization has taken place over 500 years and that it will take time to decolonize: “You need to accept that this is not going to happen in your lifetime, all you can do is get on the path and walk in the right direction.”70 I expected that the time it takes to create change is equally reflective of working in schools to bring Mi’kmaw knowledge to education. I needed to walk the line between complacency and my own impatience. I asked myself, if I “walk my talk,” was I living the foundational Aboriginal under-

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standing that all of life is interconnected? Was I working alongside Mi’kmwesu to repair and strengthen the threads of interconnectivity? Was I in “good and right relations”71 with those whom I was welcoming into the circle to bring Mi’kmaw knowledge into education? When I reached out to hold the hands of those coming into the circle, did I do so with my heart and my spirit as well as with my hands and my head? My self-interrogation led me to the recollection of a recent gathering. We were going to have a round dance, which began quickly before I was able to grasp the hand of a young woman several widths away from me. We were both dancing and stretching our arms as much as possible to close the circle, ensuring that everyone was connected. Finally our fingertips touched, and then our hands clasped, we smiled at one another, and continued to dance. I reasoned that, in the work at the school, I could only reach as far as I could reach and I could only do what I knew how to do. I paraphrased Cree scholar Stan Wilson when I reminded myself that even if I did not know how to do something, I must, when asked, do it the best way that I know how.72 I was doing the best that I knew how in teaching Mi’kmaw Studies and in working to develop Mi’kmaw education initiatives. Todd has told me on many occasions that each person can only do what she or he can do and that others have to join in the work. As well, Frank Meuse has explained that we each have to be responsible for ourselves and our own health first because, without this, we cannot do the work that we are called to do.73 After a gathering at Lakehead University, I wrote in my journal what I could remember from the words spoken by Anishinaabe film producer and policy analyst Jode Kechego: “We have to remember that we can only do today what we can do today. We can only do what we can do. We have to do what we can do and let others do what they can do. We have to let the other things take care of themselves.”74

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t h e vo i c e o f t h e sa l m o n i n t h e fa l l On the night of 4 October 2009, the Salmon spoke to me in a dream. I wrote the dream down when I awoke. The Salmon told me: We brought The People together to teach them about relationships and the necessity of mending and strengthening their connections within the Web of Life. We gathered the People around, compelling them to share their talk. It was the Elders and the Youth who could first see the work of Mi’kmwesu attaching and weaving the threads. Some People reached out to take those threads as Mi’kmwesu passed by, eager to reconnect and repair their relationships. And there were those who brushed the threads of interconnectivity from themselves, believing that their truth was “the” truth. Mi’kmwesu was not discouraged. She wove the threads all around the People, cocooning both those who reached out and those who were reluctant, because the threads of interconnectivity are the fabric of life. It is within this fabric of relationships and experiences that People’s knowledge is nurtured and their spirits grow strong. Msit Nokmaq. s e a rc h i n g f o r a t h e s i s By the end of the fall I was reflecting on the research project, looking at the research data, and contemplating the main threads. This was my initial attempt at analyzing the data. I reread my journal notes, talked to Todd, Tina, shalan, and Jamie, and read the work of many Indigenous scholars. I wondered how I could meaningfully analyze and present a narrative so that it was respectful of traditional cultural factors and had the strength to influence change in policy and pedagogical practice.75

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Crow’s Fifth Story “I’ll tell you a story. Maybe that will help you think,” I hear Crow whisper. “Weasel sits quietly in the back of the classroom. He’s watching as That Teacher struggles to teach in the Big Mess in the tale of education. ‘Hey, no wonder there is such a Big Mess,’ Weasel observes. ‘Those children are learning only one way of understanding the world. That tale of education is out of balance.’ Time slowly makes its way through that Big Mess, working along with Mi’kmwesu to repair and strengthen the threads of interrelationship, creating new tales as they weave the threads. Teachers who respect all Life and live their responsibilities within the Circle of Life watch as Time and Mi’kmwesu connect the threads of interrelationship to the Plant People. The Plant People take the threads right down into their roots and the threads become part of their spirits. The Teachers join the Ceremony and they, too, take those threads right down into their spirits and out into their teaching. And as they do, the Teachers celebrate their commitment to reciprocity, which brings balance to all Life.” “Crow! I don’t know how to analyze the data and you are not helping!” I complain. “You told me that you are using storytelling methodology,” Crow reminds me. “Remember that you read Margaret Kovach, who wrote, ‘[S]tory as method elevates the research from an extractive exercise serving the fragmentation of knowledge to a holistic endeavour that situates research firmly within the nest of relationship’?”76 m u r d e n a’ s t e ac h i n g s I turned my mind to the idea of relationship in hopes that there would be answers there. Shalan suggested that I talk to Murdena Marshall. “You have to talk to her,” shalan told me. “She talks about relationships and her teachings may help you.”

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I visited Murdena and her husband, Albert, at their home in Eskasoni First Nation. Their teachings are grounded in Mi’kmaw knowledge. Murdena described the relationship that people have with that which they are coming to know. The concept was symbolized with four concentric circles. These circles represent the physical, the personal, the respectful, and the spiritual aspects of relations. The outer circle represents the physical knowledge of something or someone. It is through this physical knowledge that we recognize the other. The second circle represents the personal. It is through the physical and respectful aspects that we can develop a personal relationship with that which we are attempting to know. The third circle represents respect. We have to respect something before we can have a relationship with it. The centre circle of this relationship model represents the spiritual. It is in this stage of relationship that we come to understand the interconnectivity of our lives with the other and with all of creation.77 After talking to Murdena, I returned to my writing, very excited that I had some new knowledge with which to reflect on and write about the research, a framework with which I could further explore and perhaps develop a way of analyzing the data. m e d i tat i n g o n t h e data I continue to think about the model that Murdena explained to me – the physical, the personal, the respectful, and the spiritual that are all a part of humans’ relationship to knowledge. I examine the sketches she made and the words she wrote in my notebook as we talked. This new knowledge is percolating right down through my thinking system, running along those wellworn habits. I know how to figure this out. I know how to make those theoretical arguments in what Peter Cole, an educator and a member of the Douglas First Nation, might call my “europhilosophically trained mind.”78 I outline my argument by

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creating a chart. It represents the four concentric circles that Murdena drew. In the columns, I write the words that relate those parts of relationship to four areas pertinent in the research: relationships with other people; relationships with salmon; relationships with other entities; and the progressive, ongoing process of focusing on and validating Mi’kmaw knowledge in school learning. I remove those layers that hold life together, chop those concepts into bite-size pieces, package them as intellectual commodities, and store them in tidy, square boxes that are logical, linear, and precise. Now I am getting somewhere in my thinking! I have order in my mind! I have knowledge! I hear Crow laughing. “What are you laughing about, Crow?” I ask. “Ha! Ha! You just turned that circle story inside out. That’s what happens when you try to make a circle into a box.” “But … but … I was just organizing my thinking,” I defend myself. I turn my back to him and let my thoughts wander. No, I cannot possibly be assimilating Murdena’s teachings into a Eurocentric thinking pattern. It is simply a reflection of how I am organizing my thinking so I can analyze the data. It is a picture of the way I understand it … and then I stop myself because I realize what I have just said. I said that the chart is how I understand Murdena’s teachings. I said that I understand them in a linear, logical, isolated way. I said that I do not understand circles. Really, they just have you going around and around and around, chasing the tale of education. I think back to my question of how we centre and legitimate Mi’kmaw knowledge in education. If I cannot think and understand the world from a Mi’kmaw perspective, then how can I possibly work at centring and legitimating the knowledge consistent with such teachings of the world? What exactly am I focusing on and validating?

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I feel “like the little boy who, long ago, went out on a spiritual search. He wandered to the Four Sacred Directions before he found himself back where he started.”79 “Back?” taunts Crow. “Did you go somewhere?” He is right in front of me. I turn my back to him again and again, turning around and around so he will not be able to hurl those knowit-all comments in my face. “Don’t you want to learn about working together to develop Mi’kmaw education?” he chides as he flies over my head. I turn faster. I keep turning faster and faster until I begin to spin in circles. “You learn by observing. What did you observe?” I hear him ask. I think of watching people in the community gather in learning circles and of seeing people in the school gather by what Mohawk Elder Sara Smith refers to as “sitting in square box classrooms at these square desks and square tables.”80 My silence does not quiet him because he knows that breaking silence “is basic to the decolonization of our mind.”81 He pushes me with more questions. “What did you hear?” “I heard people talking – talking and sharing their truths. I heard the salmon tell how Mi’kmwesu was repairing the threads of our relationships, reconnecting us to all life in the Sacred Circle.” “And what do you remember?” What is this, an oral exam? I think to myself. “I remember reading Graveline’s words. She wrote that community is ‘a sacred concept’ and that rebuilding the ‘Self-in-Relation’ is a connection between the individual and the community; rebuilding is ‘an act of resistance.’82 I remember the participants in the learning circles talking about their bloodlines and how the Mi’kmaw community grew as many people (re)membered their relations. Maybe my resistance to the patterns in which my

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mind was trained can be found in the strength of my connection to all life.” “Maybe,” Crow muses. “And maybe you are still trying to put knowledge in boxes, typing it up as the right answer to the question!” he suggests as he flies off. My mind is spinning, chasing that tale of education “like a dog chasing its tail.”83 I chased Mi’kmaw knowledge in Wildcat First Nation with the salmon and the learning circles, then I chased it into the classroom when I was teaching Mi’kmaw Studies, and finally I chased it to Murdena’s teachings. I was just about to grab that tale of education, grab it with my thoughts, sum it up in a brilliant analysis, but when I reached out to hold onto it that tale slipped through the gaps in my thinking. Somehow I had moved from circles to boxes. It is so difficult to hold onto those newly attached connections, those as yet thin threads that keep the lens of Mi’kmaw understandings in place. Dizzy, I collapse. As I tumble, I crush those boxes and all of my words fall out. That space within the gaps in my thinking is dark. I try to pick my fragile understanding of a Mi’kmaw worldview up off the ground. I know nothing. I cannot tell this story! I do not understand it! I have no words to share! I exercise my option to pass the talking stick along to someone else. I pass it to Cora Weber-Pillwax, who says, “I am always waiting for the thinking to stop, for that one glorious, culminating second when I know the whole answer to one question. I have been relearning that moment will not come, at least not while I am in thinking mode.”84 What am I to do if I have lost my way of thinking? If I cannot think, then I cannot talk. I have no words. There is nothing to write. I turn off my computer. Confusion surrounds me. I do the only thing I know to do now – I take a walk on the land. There is a newly blazed trail, one as yet unworn, new like this

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way of knowing is new to my mind. The trail takes me around the lake and along the edge of the meadow that runs to the south. Confusion about Aboriginal education, my studies, and my work at the school swirls in my mind. I walk to a pile of erratics.85 I love these rocks. “I don’t find them; they find me!”86 Over many years they have found me again and again when I was struggling. Now they may soothe the collapse of my thinking structure. These rocks hold the stories of this land, the truths since time immemorial. I listen so that I can learn from them, but I hear nothing. This is frustrating! I know from reading George Tinker that rocks are held in high regard in Indigenous ways of understanding the world. “As the oldest and wisest of all life forms, then, rocks are to be deeply respected as a category but especially as persons. They are the source of all life on the planet, and they continue to generously give of themselves for maintaining all life.”87 I do not understand this way of thinking. Maybe if I sit for a while, I will learn something. I attempt to crawl up on a rock. I scrape my hands and fall down; I am trying too hard to get to the highest point. Perhaps like the rock, I can be still in this place, be still in my thinking. I stand back and look at the rock again. I choose another possible path, one that is not quite so steep … find a foothold … step … the other leg up … reach … ouch … more scrapes … hold on tight … pull … finally on the top. I sit. I watch the meadow grass, waiting … waiting as we waited for the salmon eggs to hatch. Nothing visible is happening; no words of brilliant insight are being typed across my page … I think of Sákéj Henderson’s description of how the earth and its forces are sources of knowledge, power, or medicine. He explains “nestumou,” or the understood realms of the Mi’kmaq, which represent the earth and the teachings that come from it. There are eight realms, referred to as lodges, which are associated with certain forces that are interconnected and transform from one to another. For example, the living lodge is com-

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prised of the underwater, earth, and ghost lodges and embodies the spiraling forces affecting the daily life of the Mi’kmaq. Within the teachings of these lodges, “life and its forces are seen as a gift to be humbly accepted, not as something to be taken for granted or used to manipulate other life forms.”88 … that pine tree is huge … probably saw and heard much in its lifetime. I remind myself of Graveline’s written words: “That which the trees exhale, I inhale. That which I exhale, the tree inhales. We live in a world of many circles; these circles go out into the universe and constitute our identity, our kinship, our relations.”89 The breaths of many generations of the ancestors have been absorbed into that tree and, in turn, it sustained their breaths. That tree may be here into the time of my great-great grandchildren … I count on my fingers. I would have to say “great” five times to move from myself to the seventh generation hence … it is hard to imagine that far ahead. Stop thinking in these linear constructions, I tell myself. Time is a circular reality. There is no beginning or end. … ripples on the surface of the water … ripples … I often hear about ripples as a metaphor for creating change. Throwing a rock in the water will create a ripple outwards; it will ripple out in concentric circles. The bigger the rock, the larger those ripples and the further they will travel. There have to be big changes in education. But there is no rock being dropped now, is there? That was the wind sweeping across the meadow water. I’ll try to remember that there’s more than one way to create a ripple; there has to be more than one way to make changes in education. I think of Crow challenging me. What would he say about ripples? Maybe he would say that ripples are on the surface rather than deep within the lake, that ripples are superficial. … Crow flying by. I greet him for the second time today. “Good afternoon, Crow. I’m surprised you’re not laughing at me for trying to come up with some profound – ”

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“Ha! Ha! Ha! You look as if you’re sitting way up there waiting for a free-floating thesis to come along and hit you over the head.” In hopes of convincing him that I am asleep, I close my eyes. Way, way back, a professor somewhere told me that if you look directly at a distant star you may not be able to see it, but if you look beside the star, you will see the light. The explanation was that the light rods are at the sides of the retina in a human eye and therefore we can see light more easily when we focus our eyes to the side of a small, lit object. It is now interesting to realize how I have accepted that scientific explanation for all those years without ever questioning it. I’m not sure about the explanation, but I am sure that I have experienced this phenomenon. Look at the space beside that distant star and then you will see the star. Hey, that’s a good Crow trick. Maybe I should try that. Instead of analyzing the research for the answer to my question, maybe I could look at the open space beside what Mi’kmaw graduate student Janine Metallic refers to as our “default-thinking pattern.”90 I could look to the space that is not already filled but is open to new ways of knowing, new ways of understanding, and new ways of thinking about the world. Maybe that is the place where the research questions about centring and legitimating Mi’kmaw knowledge will be answered. I hear my grandfather talking to me: “You are trying too hard to come up with an answer. Allow yourself to say, ‘I don’t know.’ It will free your mind.” I explain to him that such a statement is not an acceptable way to conclude a study. I need a strong argument that ends with some new piece of knowledge, a new insight into Aboriginal education; I need solutions for how we change what we teach, how we teach it, and what we consider valid knowledge. I have been trying to answer these questions by using the thinking part of me, the part that I have nurtured through many years of formal education. And now that formally educated mind is detrimental to my learning. I re-

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alize that my mind has limits, limits in how it guides my understanding of the world – an understanding based on the way I have been educated, how I have been taught to think about the world and to think about knowledge of the world. My mind is racing, wondering how I can possibly stop thinking the way I do. Willie Ermine gives me a hint when he writes, “the mind, or reason, is constantly trying to understand in a reactive way what the heart knows only too well.”91 What is it that my heart could possibly know that my mind does not? I turn to Anishinaabe writer D’Arcy Rheault, who explains that the “ability to recognize the answer is already part of a person’s spirit; it is merely a process of learning to ask the right questions to unleash the potential of truth. However, learning to ask the right questions is directed by years of learning to balance emotions, listening and watching, reflection and finally, doing.”92 Am I not ready for the answers of how to develop Aboriginal education? Have I not balanced myself? Have I not listened and reflected enough? Is there more work for me to do? Then it occurs to me that I am chasing the tale of education as if knowledge is something that is gained – a feature of a dominant paradigm of the worldview.93 Melissa Nelson, an Indigenous scholar and member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, writes about the responsibility of knowledge. “Acquiring knowledge always comes with personal responsibilities, but the dominant society does not often teach or emphasize this. Consequently, most Americans assume they have the right to learn anything they want.”94 An unintentional “ouch” comes from deep down in my psyche as I realize that I, too, have assumed that I have the right to learn anything that I want to learn. My diplomas, certificates, and degrees demonstrate a lifetime of learning in this way. And yet, those pieces of paper are of no use to me now. They attest to the many years of formal education that designed the pathways of my defaultthinking pattern. Perhaps my words are lost because I do not yet

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know about my responsibility to what I have learned. It is not a question of what there is to learn but rather if I am ready to learn, ready to accept those responsibilities. Fred Metallic reminds me that the Mi’kmaw teachings and traditions are “not to be treated as ‘sources of information’ that can be accumulated for personal gain” but rather “teachings are often shared with the intent and understanding of strengthening our family systems, communities, and our nations.”95 I sit on the rock and try to look past the goal of filling my head with new knowledge, trying to create a change in public school curriculum that could be called “Mi’kmaw education,” and working to get the research results written and approved. I contemplate going beyond the accumulation of knowledge, past it to exercise my personal responsibilities in the Circle of Life. “what about consideration for all our relations what about love for each leaf tree stone student colleague insect fish worm fourlegged microbe fungus moss lichen virus” Cole asks.96 What about learning from what my heart knows only too well? What about those teachings that come to me each day in my place in the world, the teachings from my relationships with the water and the trees, the teachers and the students, the community and my family? What about those teachings already given to me – the ones that I have gained in walks along the lakeshore and sitting at the base of an old pine tree, the ones stored on a dusty shelf at the back of my mind, placed there because they did not fit my notion of knowledge? Will I have to (re)learn how to understand the lessons those teachings offered me? Have I not dismissed those teachings as not important, not worthy of academic discussion, not good enough, not relevant to formal education? The wind sweeps across my face. I begin to wonder. I wonder what it is called when an entity is trying to teach me and I will not listen. I wonder if it is called arrogance or ignorance. Am I unable or unwilling to learn from all things? Perhaps today the wind has something to teach me, but if I seek knowl-

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edge as something to be gained, I doubt that I will understand. Can I learn without a goal of gaining knowledge that can be parceled in my head? Listening … listening … I once listened to Mohawk storyteller Sylvia Maracle tell the story of how she went seeking knowledge from her grandmother, only to be asked by her grandmother to move her wood pile. Each night Sylvia was too tired to listen to the women who were talking with her grandmother, sharing their stories, and so she did not learn from them either. After the wood pile was moved and she was ready to go, Sylvia explained how she was disappointed that she had not received teachings. Her grandmother responded that the sun and the birds and the water knew so much more than she knew herself and they were teaching Sylvia as she moved the wood. Sylvia said, “I felt so small.”97 This story is a reaffirmation of the importance of the land in my life. It is this land that protects me, a place where my heart and my mind can be united to share a common understanding of the teachings that have been given to me. It is here that I can learn to balance my emotions, where I can listen and watch, and where I can reflect. It is here that my emotional balance is restored, my resiliency rejuvenated. It is on this land that I can come to honour my own “spiritual core.”98 In that honouring, I can do the work in education that I am motivated and passionate to do. I remind myself to write in my journal when I go home, phrasing the entry now in my head: developing Mi’kmaw education cannot simply be a task accomplished through Western ways of understanding the world. Mi’kmaw knowledge is a way of conceptualizing the world based in interconnectivity and respectful relationships with everything else. I want to consider using respectful relationships to guide the work in the community and in the school. I look out over the meadow and see many dew-covered spider webs strung on the meadow grass, glistening as the morn-

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ing sun reflects off them. I consider that in my single-minded goal of getting up on this rock, I destroyed many of them. I check my pant legs and boots and then stare at the threads covering me. These threads are a tangible testament of my connection to this place. How many of them have I torn off in my haste to gain knowledge? How often have I missed the teaching because I mistook information for knowledge? How many times have I sacrificed relationships in pursuit of the goal, a goal of replacing curriculum based in Western worldviews with curriculum based in Mi’kmaw worldviews? What if I stopped understanding the work as a goal to be accomplished but rather as a way of living and working – building and strengthening respectful relations between the school staff and the Mi’kmaw community? What would happen if my work were focused on having respectful relationships with others while working to move a Mi’kmaw education agenda forward, with the emphasis on relationships rather than curriculum? “Hey, I see that you are finally asking some questions that might help you,” comments Crow. I ignore him and continue to think. “what about offering tobacco water thanks awareness prayer intoned sung danced or silently felt prayer as conversation with all of creation.”99 I reach down, down past my head, way down into my heart to find my offerings. To the east I offer my gratefulness for each and every teaching I receive. To the south I offer my acknowledgment that the sun, the water, the plants, and the animals are my sustenance. To the west I offer my appreciation for the wisdom and guidance given to me by my grandparents, my parents, and my teachers. To the north I offer my humbleness as I recognize the enormous teachings that come from the simplest of experiences. May I continue to learn. Msit Nokmaq.

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c row w i s d o m “Wow! I have learned so much,” I tell Crow. “All I have to do now is wrap up the ending of this story.” “Ending? This isn’t going to be another one of those happily-ever-after things, is it?” he asks. “No. This is where I put forth a thesis and come to a conclusion based on that thesis. I think of it as the part where I refer back to the central theme of the research and then bring all the stories together; tie up the loose ends.” “Why would you want to bring all the stories together?”100 Crow asks. “I’m supposed to. That’s the academic rule.” “You went to university to learn rules about tying stories together?” Crow chides in a voice that sounds suspiciously like my grandfather. “I went to Bird College. They teach something different there.” I take the bait. “What do they teach?” “Life happens in a circle. We keep learning. There is no end,” says Crow. “You’ve told the stories of the Learning Circle and the Inside Out Circle. There is an Outer Circle and Circles outside of the Outer Circle and Circles outside of those Circles. The cosmos is infinite. The circles are like the layers of a sphere,101 connected through relationship. That which is in the Circle of Infinity is also in the Circle within You.102 When you strengthen those connections and honour others in the Circle, you accept your responsibility for keeping the Circle strong. When you (ac)knowledge all life in the Sacred Web, you are in relationship. That’s where knowledge is, in those relationships, and it is that knowledge that nourishes the human potential of all people.”103

Chapter Five

A Tale: The Outer Circle

a p i l g r i m ag e I was on my annual winter pilgrimage, circumnavigating the lake on a sunny, late winter day. Chkupan, my twelve-year-old daughter, was with me. The snow along the lakeshore was deep so she walked behind me, stepping into my footprints. I laughed and began to dance, challenging her to follow. Our dance steps marked the unblemished snow and wove the story of our visits to all our relations along the way: the oldest of the pine trees, the large granite rocks protruding through the ice surface, and the beavers still wintering in their lodge. We cleared a patch of snow and gazed through the ice to the world below. Both of us offered tobacco to reaffirm our relation to those who live in the waters of the lake. “Mum, do you remember the day we released the salmon?” Chkupan asked. “Yes, I do,” I replied. “Sometimes Todd, Tina, shalan, Jamie, and I talk about the salmon project, telling and retelling the story of the salmon. The stories about the salmon project become stronger as we retell, listen to one another telling, and reflect on our experience with the salmon. The experience grows and becomes more powerful because we relive the experience through story. Jo-ann Archibald refers to this when she writes: ‘the power of a story is shown in stories about a story.’1

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“Every year that we watch the salmon eggs hatch, we accept our responsibilities to the salmon and to one another. We acknowledge our interconnectedness to the salmon when we perform the ceremonies as the salmon are released into the river to fulfill their life journey. The salmon teach us and we honour them by putting them at the core of our living story.” I thought about the salmon project as we made our way back to the house. I remembered talking with Albert Marshall about the salmon project. He told me that when we learn from, it is through observation and personal relationship with the other that the learning takes place. This is different than the “surface learning” that happens when we learn about something. When we learn from something, it is a deep learning that reflects our respectful relationship with that other life.2 Gregory Cajete writes, “concepts of sharing, connecting and relating one’s life to animals formed the basic premise of Indigenous education.”3 After thinking much about it, I realized that although we had often spoken of learning about the salmon, in fact we had learned from the salmon. We had become part of their lives as they had become part of ours. If we recognize the salmon as relatives in creation and if we have a relationship with them, then we can recognize them as our teachers.4 When I awoke the next morning, I went to my writing place and copied down the following story that was given to me in a dream.5 t h e sa l m o n ’ s s to ry f o r t h e p e o p l e We are the Salmon People of the east coast of Turtle Island. We are born in the rivers where the fresh water runs off the land into the ocean. Our eggs are guarded by the Rock People who have been here since time immemorial. Their knowledge is far greater than all others. They protect us and share their wisdom with us. Long ago, when The People knew their relation to us

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and remembered their ceremonies, we would give ourselves to them so they could live and grow. The People knew the ceremonies that celebrate the beginning of each season. They would drum and sing and pray. They called on the Spirits of their Ancestors to assist them and they called on the River Spirit to feed the Young so they would grow strong and healthy. In their prayers, The People remembered the Spirit of the Black Bear who fed on us and helped to spread the bones of our Elders along the shores of the River where they, in turn, became part of Mother Earth and nurtured all Creatures of the River. The People gathered and they told stories and all the Creatures of the Land would gather in the outer circle to listen. And in the singing and praying and telling, we were all part of the story. All Life was in balance and all Life flourished. We lived in this balance of relations and reciprocity for many, many lifetimes. More than anyone can remember. And then the Newcomers settled on the land. The People were corralled onto tiny parcels of land. The Newcomers made rules so The People could not talk to one another in their own language. Then The People no longer remembered how to talk to us or to the other Finned, Winged, and Four-Legged Creatures. The Newcomers’ rules were obstacles and even the Rivers themselves were blocked with Rock People and Tree People. The Newcomers called these river blocks “dams.” The dams kept us from returning to the rock nests where we laid our eggs. The Spirit of the River was held back and made to flood the land where the Rivers-Edge Creatures lived. The Creatures screamed but no one heard. We called from the Ocean, telling The People that we wanted to come home to have our Young, but no one heard. No one heard because they could no longer speak the language of the Land. There are few of us left now. Some of us have learned to jump the dams, but it is a treacherous journey and no one is there to help us. Sometimes we are captured in nets and taken

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to live in the Hatchery. We are made to lay our eggs there, with no Rock People to guard and protect our Young or to share their wisdom. Sometimes we are lost during the journey. We pray to the River Spirit to help us find our families in the Ocean and when we get there, our families do not recognize us, nor us them. Only a few of our Elders still remember our ways and many of our Young have not learned their place in the Circle. One day our Elders gathered and those of our Young who could still hear the voice of Mother Earth gathered in the circle, too. We asked the Creator to give our eggs to The People along the Wildcat River. The eggs were taken to the home of The People and kept safe. They asked the Rock People to be in the tank with us, and to make nests for us and to protect our Young. And while our eggs hatched and our Young came into the world, The People remembered. They remembered a few words to talk to us in the old ways and they remembered the drum’s songs in order to sing to us. Our Young heard the heartbeat of Mother Earth and they knew it was safe to come into the world, the world that was changing. And when they hatched, The People carried them to the river and there they sang and prayed to the Spirit of the River to guide Our Young and they prayed to the Rock People to protect the Young. They put the Young into the water along the bank where the Little Ones could hide until they were ready. Some of The People had relearned the language of the land so they could hear the voices of the Ancestors who spoke that day. The Ancestors told The People to ready themselves, to learn their language, to sing and drum, to do the ceremonies that reaffirm life, and to be in good relations with all People of the Land. Then the Rock Ancestors spoke and shared their wisdom. They told The People to remember who they are and their connection to all things because life hangs in a balance and The People must give of themselves and take only what they need.

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And then the Great Spirit spoke to The People and reminded them to gather all their relatives, both those who have forgotten their bloodlines and those who have forgotten the ways of their People, and to then join with all People of the Land for we are all connected through Creation. The Great Spirit told The People to respect the gifts of others as all share their gifts in the Learning Circle that is Life. And when we respect and share, the circle that is the Web of Life will grow, too, and we will all be strong. Msit Nokmaq. d i f f e r i n g wo r l dv i e w s In my time alone through the winter, I continued to think about the research. I was struggling but I did not know why. There were no words. I evaded Crow since I knew he would pester me. My avoidance tactics were futile. He found me deep in thought one quiet afternoon. He hung upside down from a tree limb. “You look confused,” Crow observes. “You look like a bat,” I respond. “I’m inverting my view of the world,” he explains. “If you always look at the world the same way, you might begin to think that your way of understanding is ‘the’ way. It is helpful to change your perspective once in a while.” “It’s going to take more than hanging upside down from a tree branch to clarify my thinking,” I state. “Eurocentric worldview dominates every aspect of education. It seems as if the changes we are working towards in the school are obliterated by that domination. Sometimes … well … sometimes I struggle to remain respectful towards Western worldviews. I have a ‘note to self’ inside my thinking space. Chickasaw scholar Eber Hampton’s words are on it: ‘We live in a world of many cultures, all of which have different standards. It is not necessary to devalue the standards of Western society, except insofar as they claim to

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be the only worthwhile standards.’6 This work in education is very difficult. I don’t know how to do it in a respectful way, a way in which all are honoured in the Circle of Life.” “You are focusing on the negatives – the things that are difficult and that are challenging. Reflect on what you do know. Find a perspective that will allow you to move ahead,” Crow advises. b r i n g i n g to g e t h e r i n d i g e n o u s a n d w e s t e r n wo r l dv i e w s In the days following Crow’s visit, I searched to find the strategies of other educators. I became a voracious reader of the work of Aboriginal scholars who address the coming together of two knowledge systems. Although I could not sit with the scholars and talk as I would with an Elder, they became teachers to me through their written words shared in print. I listened to them as I read. I began with William Mussell, who writes that “strategies to bring together Indigenous and Western paradigms and practices” are reflected in the indigenization of an educational program.7 Herman Michell writes that there is a balance between the two worldviews, a balance that is disrupted when “EuroWestern knowledge [is considered] superior to Indigenous ways of knowing.”8 Willie Ermine suggests that we have to work on “the cutting edge of knowledge production that enshrines the potential of all peoples and worldviews.” 9 This cutting edge can be conceptualized as an “intersection,” a “confluence,” or a “convergence” of Indigenous and Western knowledge systems.10 Ray Barnhardt and Yup’ik teacher Oscar Kawagley seek what they refer to as the common ground across worldviews. They represent these two knowledge systems with two over-

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lapping circles. Each knowledge system has unique views and the commonalities are represented in the overlapping area.11 Kawagley writes of “the collision of contrasting worldviews”12 and of “searching for a synthesis between the two ways of understanding the world.”13 Patricia Monture-Angus describes it as “the middle, the place between two cultures, where any bridges of understanding will be constructed.” 14 Deborah McGregor refers to a “co-existence” model of collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people whereby they develop independently but support one another in resolving common issues.15 Margaret Kovach states that there is a lack of discussion about how education can support what she refers to as a “co-epistemological foundation.”16 I continued to think about this space: the intersection, the confluence, and the common ground and how it works in education. What is the space in education in which Western worldviews and Indigenous worldviews can co-exist? How is education based on a co-epistemological foundation? As Marie Battiste writes: “the immediate challenge is how to balance colonial legitimacy, authority, and disciplinary capacity with Indigenous knowledge and pedagogies.”17 “The question then,” as Anishinaabe academic Lawrence Gross explains, “becomes one of where the balance lies between uniting the experience of Indians and non- Indians and acknowledging the differences between the two groups.”18 I recall reading a story that Chippewa scholar Gail Guthrie Valaskakis says she borrowed and shortened. In this story there is a wolf who is blind as a result of an accident. The wolf asks and receives an eye from a mouse. With this eye the wolf can see only one tiny bit of the world – one tree, one person, one footprint. Then a buffalo agrees to give the wolf another eye, which enables him to see the full range of the world. “And so the wolf continues on his journey, now able to see with both his

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mouse eye and his buffalo eye.”19 Guthrie Valaskakis describes these two eyes as enabling the wolf to see “the simultaneity of past and present, individual and collective, Indian and nonIndian.”20 What if education gave students such eyes, one to understand the world from a Western worldview and another eye to understand the world from an Indigenous worldview? What if, as Michell suggests, “all people and their knowledge ways occupy an equal place within the sacred circle of life”?21 Albert Marshall developed such a model of education. He describes “Two-Eyed Seeing” as seeing the strength in both Western and Indigenous knowledge systems and making a conscious effort to “respect the differences between the two perspectives and to focus on, and work from, a position of shared strengths.”22 He helped me to further understand the thinking behind Two-Eyed Seeing by saying, “Our journey here is not meant for one perspective or one consciousness to get us through. We all need each other. So the lessons that we are trying to put forth now to our young people – it’s going to be much more expedient if we can take these tools of whatever the white man has brought forth and the tools that our forefathers left us with.”23 I continued to think about this concept that speaks to “drawing upon the deep understandings that these two knowledge systems represent and mindfully bringing their strengths together”24 so that we might have “meaningful dialogue.”25 These are respectful, balanced approaches to education that are based in the spirit of sharing the strengths of these two worldviews – a place of balance. It reminds me of the work of Mi’kmwesu in repairing and strengthening relationships. It is this understanding of balance, based in Mi’kmaw worldview, which will guide us in bringing Mi’kmaw knowledge into the classroom. Ermine explains, “Working towards the respect and understanding of different and multiple readings of the world cap-

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tured in alternate worldviews can enhance the human capacity to create knowledge.”26 Within this work, he describes an “ethical space” between Indigenous and Western knowledge systems where “the virtues of respect and compassion for the human spirit will guide the process of understanding across cultures.”27 These are respectful, balanced views of knowledge that are based in the spirit of sharing the strengths of these two worldviews and create a place of balance and good and right relations between all people involved in the work of education. I thought about respecting both Aboriginal and Western worldviews, and how such respect contributes to the spirit of collaboration. Then I thought back to the learning circles that were held during the salmon project. Those circles were sharing circles, an opportunity to offer our truths and knowledge through stories. As I thought of how we valued one another while we shared our stories, I recalled Leroy Little Bear’s words: The Aboriginal value of sharing manifests itself in relationships. Relationships result from interactions with the group and with all creation. Sharing speaks not just to interchanging material goods but also, more importantly, to the strength to create and sustain “good feelings.” Maintaining good feelings is one reason why a sense of humour pervades Aboriginal societies. Sharing also brings about harmony, which sustains strength and balance.28 trickster consciousness “These concepts of bringing Indigenous and Eurocentric worldview together are helpful in understanding how this works,” I muse aloud. “Yes, but you’re still writing from your head about how to focus on Mi’kmaw knowledge in formal education as if it is a specific goal that, when achieved, entitles you to say: ‘We did it!’

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You are still using linear thinking,” Crow concludes. “You are still trying to find the right answer, still trying to package knowledge, still staring directly at the light. ‘The truth is not out there to find. It is in our hearts.’29 Speak from your heart.” And with that, he flies away … backwards! “See you in the outer circle,” he calls. Crows can’t fly backwards, I remind myself. Another trick! “You’re just a trickster!” I yell after him. “This is a trickster place!” Confused and not knowing what else to say, I pass the talking stick to Gerald Vizenor, an Indigenous writer and scholar whose work is based on trickster narratives. “Crow is pushing you into trickster consciousness,” he tells me. “I go for that, too,”30 he confides. “Trickster consciousness is the in-between place. It is found when you juxtapose two or more incompatible frames of reference.31 Trickster consciousness disrupts the opposites32 and it liberates you from conventional thinking.”33 The talking stick then moves on to US author Michael Garrett who explains the Rule of Opposites, a rule that addresses dualities and wholeness in life. “The balance of which Native American tradition speaks is not a recognition of two separate phenomena, and a decision as to which is best and which is worst. The balance of which American Indian tradition speaks is a recognition of the oneness of two differing phenomena, and a decision to honour both through harmony and balance.”34 It is in this recognition of oneness that “universal learning takes place.”35 The talking stick then comes to me. I hold it until the words are ready to emerge from my heart and the spirits move me to speak. In this moment of silence, I connect my inner story and my outer story, my heart and my mind, the personal and the communal, and my silence and my voice.

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I say, “I realize that when I focus directly on bringing Mi’kmaw knowledge into the school, I am thinking and using my default pattern of linear logic. In this mode I want to find the ‘right way’ to work and I often get frustrated. When I step backwards into the outer circle with Crow, I see the Circle of Life as a story. It is in the outer circle that dichotomies become one, and life is in balance. “I am learning that the place where a Mi’kmaw worldview and a Western worldview come together is a place where trickster tales exist. I remember reading Little Bear’s ideas about these worldviews coming together. He said, ‘no one has a pure worldview that is 100 percent Indigenous or Eurocentric rather everyone has an integrated mind, a fluxing and ambidextrous consciousness, a precolonized consciousness that flows into a colonized consciousness and back again.’”36

Chapter Six

A New Tale

e x p l a i n i n g m y i n s i g h t s to c row I tiptoe out the back door of the house and find my way, in the dark, to the tree where Crow is sleeping. The first rays of light have not yet broken over the horizon. I stand with my back to the east, turn on my flashlight, and shine it directly at Crow. “Wow, it’s a bright, sunshiny morning. Time to wake up the world,” Crow mutters to himself. He stretches his wings, opens his beak, and calls “Caw! Caw! Good morning!” He is fluffing his feathers when I turn off the flashlight. “Hey! Hey! What’s going on? … Oh my gosh! I’m blind! Help me! I’m blind!” I cannot hold my laughter any longer. “Ha! Ha! Ha! Oh, Crow, you’re not blind. Remember! Don’t look at the light. Look at the open space beside the light. That’s the place of trickster consciousness. When you look directly at the light, you are thinking in a linear way.” “Humph,” he grumps. “Can’t you just let an old Crow sleep?” He closes his eyes. “Crow! Wake up! I came out to tell you that I heard a voice.” “Good to know your ears are working,” he responds sarcastically. “No, no. You don’t understand. I heard just one voice.”

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“I hear one, too. Why don’t you put it back to bed?” “Cranky, cranky! You have pushed me and challenged me and mocked me through this entire story. I finally got something figured out and you don’t even want to listen,” I challenge. “Fine! What is it that you figured out?” “I had a dream.1 In it, all the people were sitting in a circle and they were talking. It was just like we did in the learning circles. There were community members and school staff. They were talking – talking about the work we are doing together. They were telling a story and there was only one voice,” I explain. “There was only one person talking? No sharing?” he asks. “No. No. They were all speaking as one voice. They were sharing their stories and ideas of the salmon project. They were listening respectfully. Their words were strong. They talked together until there was only one story.2 Don’t you get it, Crow? In the retelling and the listening to the story of our experiences, we brought that story back to life. In the talking and listening and retelling, we created a new story that came from the old story. The people in the community and the people in the school used to tell different stories. The salmon project was a collaboratively constructed story.3 Collaborative stories, created through respect and reciprocity, bring about balance and harmony and create healing that restores relationships. Do you remember when I read the end of Thomas King’s book, The Truth about Stories, to you? He quoted Nigerian storyteller Ben Okri as saying, ‘If we change the stories we live by, quite possibly we change our lives.’4 Do you get it? We are creating a new story and we are changing the way we live and work together. ‘The joint development of new story-lines is a collaborative effort.’5 Our new story began to emerge when we could reflect on, and makes sense of, our experiences within the salmon project. Now we can use the Mi’kmaw understanding of relationship and reciprocity to move our storying forward. We can collectively write a new story about education.”

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I continue. “In my dream, I could see the threads! It was those threads, those story threads, which were connecting everyone and everything. I could see Mi’kmwesu! I thought she was just an intellectual metaphor. But I saw her! I saw her take the story threads that came from each person’s story line, each person’s truth. Our respectful sharing of stories reaffirmed our interconnectedness with one another. Mi’kmwesu wove those story threads together and mended the torn and frayed parts, just like my grandmother used to mend my grandfather’s worn out socks. “It is through restored relationships that we create new stories because the relationship threads interconnect and weave the fabric of our lives and our stories. Remember when I would take wood ticks off me and tear them into two pieces? When I watched Todd with a wood tick, I was reminded that they, too, are part of my interconnectivity to all things. Even the smallest creatures are part of the Circle of Life and I have a personal responsibility to all things within the Circle. I have restored my relationship with wood ticks and I have created a new story. Now when I see one, I carry it outside and gently put it on the ground. It is a new story based on a restored and restoried relationship. “I used to think about centring and legitimating Mi’kmaw knowledge as something that could be taken up within a formal-education understanding of what knowledge is and how we teach. I was trying to find the way to do the work. I was looking, as if it were a recipe that I could find. But there are no recipes, no rules, and no step-by-step directions, are there, Crow? It is about doing what is ethical in our lives as we share this land. It is about working together to create learning for our children. My responsibility is to work towards nurturing and restoring good and right relations through respecting, sharing, listening, and speaking my own truth. The work is relationship work. The work of Mi’kmwesu can’t be confined to the curriculum of square-boxed classrooms, can it, Crow?

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“The more I experienced Murdena’s teachings about relationships, the more I understand them. Those circles representing the physical, personal, respect, and spiritual are parts of the layers of relationship. The physical aspects, the personal aspects, the respect, and the spiritual elements are the components that are in a relationship that is deep, a relationship through which we learn from the other. Opaskwayak Cree scholar Shawn Wilson maintains that knowledge is relational and that we have a relationship with all of creation. He writes that ‘the importance of relationship must continue to take precedence.’6 ‘The giving and receiving of knowledge takes place through the interconnectivity of all things. It is through our relationships that we have knowledge. “Crow, I am getting a better understanding. Crow? … Crow? …” u n d e rs ta n d i n g t h e t r i c k s t e r w i t h i n “Mum!” I hear Chkupan’s voice from inside the house. I realize that the sun is well over the horizon and I can see her clearly as she steps out the back door. “Mum! Who are you talking to?” she asks me. “I’m talking to Crow,” I tell her. “I came out to tell him about my dream.” She looks up in the tree. Crow is not there. “Crow?” she asks me. “He may not be able to hear you, wherever he is,” she offers. We sit down together on the back step. She stares at the flashlight still in my hand. “Having trouble seeing in the daylight?” she asks with Crow-like sarcasm in her voice. “Oh, that’s just a trickster story prop,” I reply. “Mum, why do you keep saying Crow is a trickster? Our dog can do more tricks than a crow.”

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“Trickster is a story character who makes the story more entertaining and embodies the teachings of the story. We like to laugh at trickster, but we also learn from him. He’s the one who makes mistakes and, if we listen to the story and learn from it, we won’t make the same mistakes. In this research, Crow sometimes reversed the story roles. Instead of me being the researcher and the storyteller, I was the one making mistakes. As the research moved along, I realized that we might also have a trickster within ourselves. In my struggles to decolonize my mind, one of my greatest challenges came from inside me; from the contradiction of my internal and my external worlds and from the gap between what my head knows and what my heart tells me. “I relate to what Canadian author and educator, Lorri Neilsen Glenn, wrote,” I say to Chkupan. Every great writer or researcher I have ever encountered – every inspiring thinker I’ve known – has spent time figuring themselves out in relation to the larger world order in order to know how to contribute … It’s the kind of work done in silence and solitude, work that bears fruit we can take to those around us: fruit such as humility, the willingness to let go of illusions, the lessons of listening, and of reaching out to others.7 “There have been many silences and pauses for me during this research. These were occasions when I could reflect on an event or on something I read or heard. I could hear the trickster talking to me. It was at these times that I gained valuable insights by recognizing the contradictions within myself and my responsibility to others. “I’ve been trying to work with others to move an Aboriginal education agenda forward but it occurred to me during this research that ideas have their own spirit. I asked Todd about it.

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‘Yes, ideas have a spirit, too, and grow in their own time,’ he told me.8 Things happen in their own time and when they happen, they give birth to new ideas. I have wondered if, instead of us coming up with the ideas to move an Aboriginal education agenda forward, perhaps ideas take us into their work. Maybe the story writes our lives rather than us writing the story. This view has helped me disrupt my own tendency to be task oriented, forging ahead with my personal notions of what is to be done without considering the need to respect, restore, and strengthen relationships as I go. “When I think of restoring and maintaining good relationships, I think of the salmon project and the teaching of Mi’kmaw Studies. Those were opportunities for us to strengthen what Kovach refers to as ‘relational skills’: having humility, having a sense of humor, and being ‘attuned.’9 We nurtured the collaborative relationships just as we nurtured the salmon eggs, hatching and then releasing the ideas of a working group.” I repeat the research question to myself: How can we collaboratively work to centre and legitimate Mi’kmaw knowledge in education? The answers are in the threads of interconnectivity which, when woven together, create the story of our lives. Crow’s Sixth Story I continue to sit on the step after Chkupan returns to the house. I soon hear the familiar “Caw! Caw!” of Crow’s call. He joins me and begins a story. “Time sends Idea along,” he says. “Idea goes to that University and learns to dialogue in that Teacher Talk. Idea talks to That Teacher and invites the class to a workshop at Weasel Ville. Idea gives That Teacher lesson plans for the workshop and a set of handouts for the class. ‘I’m not sure,’ says That Teacher. She has to think about it. Idea talks about how the workshop will meet the curriculum outcomes in three areas for that grade level. That Teacher agrees to the trip. Weasel is very

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excited. The class arrives at Weasel Ville. Idea gathers the children in a circle. ‘We always start with a dance,’ says Idea. Weasel shows the students how to dance the Relationship Dance. That Teacher is not dancing but Idea is not discouraged because she knows Time is coming along. While they dance, all the students and all the weasels hold onto the threads that Mi’kmwesu gathered from the Rock People, the Four-Legged, the Swimmers, the Winged, the Waters, the Mountains, the Valleys, and the Winds. They dance around and around. After a while, Time comes along and That Teacher dances too. They all dance until they are cocooned in the threads of relationship.” “That’s a good Mi’kmwesu trick,” I laugh. “That tale of education is bound to look different as people transform within those cocoons.” “How to bring Mi’kmaw knowledge into the school is an idea that will grow in its own time. There is much for you to do so Idea can move along,” Crow advises.

Postscript

o n g o i n g c o l l a b o r at i o n In September 2009, the circle of those involved in moving an Aboriginal education agenda forward widened as more teachers and community members joined the discussion. The group discussed the ways in which the community and the school could continue to work together. Everyone agreed that an annual salmon project is an important part of the continued work. We also discussed curricula that are open to Aboriginal knowledge. I felt optimistic when I heard several teachers offer to incorporate Mi’kmaw teachings into their lessons. Throughout the discussion, Battiste’s guidelines were present in my head. To affect reform, educators need to make a conscious decision to nurture Indigenous knowledge, dignity, identity, and integrity by making a direct change in school philosophy, pedagogy, and practice. They need to develop missions and purposes that carve out time and space to connect with the wisdom and traditions of Indigenous knowledge. They need to teach holistic and humanistic connections to local and collective relationships. They need to generate educational space that allows them to

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be challenging, caring, inspiring, and alert to their students’ intellectual travails and attuned to their inner conditions. They need to make educational opportunities for students to come together in community with people who bring out their holistic better selves. Only when these changes in thought and behaviour are made can we create an educational system that is a place of connectedness and caring, a place that honours the heritage, knowledge, and spirit of every First Nations student.1 I knew that we were not yet in that place. However, our relationships were stronger and we were better able to work along with Idea. We were sharing and we were respectful. Relationships were continuing to take precedence. Because of the very low number of students registered, Mi’kmaw Studies was not offered as a course during the 2008–09 school year. I wanted to continue to teach Mi’kmaw history because, as Jamie said, it helps Mi’kmaw community members heal, and because history is a formal curriculum where the Western worldview of colonial history must be challenged. In an effort to continue this work in the absence of Mi’kmaw Studies, I talked to the Canadian History teacher, Barbara Rhodenizer, and offered to teach an Aboriginal perspective on Canadian history. My intent was to challenge the dominant history and to honour and teach alternative histories, strategies that Judy IsekeBarnes describes as ways to access Indigenous knowledges.2 Barbara agreed to co-teaching. We planned each unit and then decided how often I would teach. Sometimes I taught half the time and other times it was less frequently. There was resistance from students. Some complained that they had not enrolled in Native studies. This stance, that Native studies courses are the only curriculum that can provide teachings of Aboriginal history, marginalizes Aboriginal knowledge and history. Several students demanded explanations for why I

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was teaching Aboriginal history as part of Canadian history and some wrote a letter to the principal to formalize their complaints. Barbara and I had many talks with the students and made it clear to them that I was teaching required components of the Canadian History course. On several occasions, I went over the curriculum guide to point out the required Aboriginal content in the course. I was using the existing curriculum to legitimate my teaching and to bring a Two-Eyed approach to the study of history. I felt very committed to this teaching and the responsibility to share the knowledge that I have. As Iseke-Barnes reminded me, “part of resistance is coming to know what one knows and to take action upon that knowledge. One location for that action is within educational locations.”3 In reflecting on my feelings at the time, I am reminded of Todd’s explanation that while we are responsible for sharing the knowledge that we have, we must leave it up to others to decide whether or not they will accept that knowledge. Teaching Aboriginal history challenged students to think critically about history, colonization, and power. It encouraged them to take responsibility for their own actions, including the initiative to learn other histories. The resistance to my teaching dissipated over the school year and students occasionally made remarks such as “I never knew that before” in response to a lesson. The discussion of residential schools was one such example. The residential school for Atlantic Canada, the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School, is about a two-hour drive from North Queens School. The legacy of the residential schools is not simply something in a text about something that happened elsewhere. The stories we heard and listened to, the location we talked about, and the cultural genocide that took place happened in our region – to people and by people from this region. It is more difficult to deny and resist when the stories are not someone else’s stories but our stories.

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What resulted from our co-teaching of Canadian History was very powerful. It brought the resistance to First Nations history into the open, where it could be discussed directly. Students had no choice about whether or not to take Canadian History because it was the only senior-high social studies course offered. Taking Canadian History, rather than Mi’kmaw Studies, was no longer a way to opt out of learning more about Aboriginal history. No one commented that the Aboriginal sections of the course I taught were any easier than any other section of the course. In using this approach to teaching First Nations history, there can be no marginalization of the history; no complaints that the course is “not real,” “not up to standards,” “not relevant,” “not educational,” and “not structured.” It seems paradoxical that after all the lobbying that Tina and I did to have Mi’kmaw Studies taught in the school, I can now see that not teaching it this year was actually an opportunity to effect change in another way. One day Tina and I reflected on the school year and the increased opportunities there were to move an Aboriginal-education agenda forward. We talked about the curriculum openings as “cracks.” Tina amusingly referred to these as “wisecracks” – the spaces that we wisely step into and work to widen, expanding the possibilities to incorporate Mi’kmaw knowledge in the public school curriculum.4 c o n t i n u i n g t h e sa l m o n p ro j e c t In the early spring, Todd and I discussed the salmon project for the current school year. Our plan was that both the school and the community would each have tanks for hatching three hundred salmon – the number of eggs provided by the fish hatchery when groups request to participate in the salmon hatchery program. Unfortunately, because of the application deadline to acquire the eggs, Wildcat First Nation was not able to obtain

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salmon eggs from the hatchery. We decided that we would share the three hundred eggs that were given to the school. One hundred and fifty salmon hatched in Wildcat First Nation and one hundred and fifty salmon hatched in North Queens School. Sharing the eggs gave all interested participants easy access to make daily observations of the hatching process, and everyone was encouraged to visit both sites. The salmon and participants were brought together for a release ceremony where we talked, smudged, drummed, sang, and ate together. Through this work, we continue to restore, strengthen, and broaden our relationships. The members of Wildcat First Nation continue to share their knowledge with school staff and through our collaborative work, Mi’kmaw knowledge is valued and legitimated. The research and the continuing salmon project have given the community a rebirth, and the community members had a new sense of themselves as Mi’kmaw people.5 Like the salmon eggs, they are continuing to grow and change, and so too is the relationship between the school staff and the community. I continue to strengthen my relationship to the land. I take walks, do my personal ceremonies, and talk with Crow, the trickster who is ever present. He still tells me stories and pushes my thinking about Aboriginal education. Although committed to a textual format, this research story continues to grow and, in so doing, I continue to learn from it.

Appendix

My Personal Reflections on the Teachings i n t e r p r e t i n g t h e t e ac h i n g s The work highlighted in this story is continuing, but the research story written in these pages must come to an end. As I close, I think of Lorri Neilsen Glenn’s remark that “We need to know our own stories, and be bold about learning what they mean.”1 I want to ask Crow what the story means, but I know that the answer is already within me. My reflections wander along those new paths in my thinking and come to the place where there are memories of reading Manulani Aluli Meyer.2 She emphasizes the importance of interpreting rather than explaining or analyzing research. I imagine Crow telling me that analyzing presupposes that things can be broken down into parts and that academic work traditionally engages in deciphering those parts. And then he might remind me that interpretation is a way for me to offer the teachings that I gathered from the experience. These offerings are how I share the knowledge that was given to me. “I cannot tell you the ‘right’ answers to the research question,” I tentatively write across my page. “I can only tell you what the story means to me and what I have learned. When I answer this way, I speak from both my head and my heart.” Crow nods his head in a gesture of approval. My interpretations come as I tell and retell the research story and as I listen to the co-researchers telling their stories of our

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work. This pattern of telling, listening, and retelling has been repeated many times and, with each reliving of the story, I learn more from it in what Jean Clandinin and Michael Connelly refer to as “a reflective relationship.” They write that as “difficult as it may be to tell a story, the more difficult but important task is in the retelling of stories that allows for growth and change. We imagine, therefore, that in the construction of narratives of experience, there is a reflexive relationship between living a life story, telling a life story, retelling a life story, and reliving a life story.”3 In this appendix, I share my understandings of the particular parts of the research that address the dynamics of school educators and Mi’kmaw community members working together to centre and legitimate Mi’kmaw knowledge in education. I have put these teachings about working together into bundles named silence, tricksters, and storytelling as the research tool. silence Contemplating this research story, I realize that silence is the spaces that appear in the story fabric, the space between the warp threads and weft threads of relationship. In writing about Gerald Vizenor, Kimberly Blaeser suggests that we recognize that “silence too has inherent power.”4 In the story, silence took form through a quieting of the self, an absence of voice, and the place of the sacred. Quieting of the Self I experienced silence as a quietness that I needed within myself in order to listen to what someone else was saying. I had to silence myself by quieting my own self-talk and suspending my thinking. Quieting my self-talk was not easy and so respectfully listening to others took much effort and intention. In this silence I could listen to others and honour their words and stories. The silence created “good listening.”5 In the pauses between

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speakers, I would reflect on what was said and then prepare myself to listen to the next speaker. The quietness within me was a way of being respectful to others. When we collaborate, we are responsible for quieting ourselves and respectfully listening to others so that we hear their words and honour their truths. I think back to Charlie Labrador’s teaching on speaking our truth. I realize that it is my place to offer what I know, not to push as if I have “the truth” but simply to speak my truth while knowing that some will hear it, some will challenge it, some will resist it, and some will negate it. But I have spoken my truth and I am obliged to respectfully listen to the truths of others. I recall Neilsen Glenn’s description of her own learning through what she refers to as “lyric inquiry”: “My stories and others’ stories are all necessary so that we can help each other learn not who is right or who knows more, but what really matters. How to be wise, how to listen deeply, how to change ourselves so that we can change the world around us.”6 Listening deeply and learning what really matters requires that we bring this kind of quietness to our internal selves when school staff and community members work collaboratively. An Absence of Voice Silence may also be an absence of human voices. There were several variations of this lack of voice in the research story. One kind is what Susan Dion refers to as a “respectful silence,”7 when people are uncertain about what to say. This silence was evident in the first sharing circles in the Mi’kmaw Studies class when our talking stick travelled the circle and no one spoke. The students were uncomfortable and only an occasional nervous giggle broke the silence as the talking stick quickly passed from hand to hand. With more experience in sharing circles, the students became more comfortable and they spoke more often. Oppressive silence, in which some voices are silenced while others are privileged, was also a factor in our collaborative work. Marie Battiste’s 2004 Canadian Society for the Study of

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Education plenary address, made me realize that breaking an oppressive silence is counteracted with guilt, anger, denial, or racist justifications for continued colonial privilege. Our effort to teach Mi’kmaw history was one example of breaking an oppressive silence. Traditionally, the school has offered only a Canadian history course from a Eurocentric perspective on an annual basis. By teaching Mi’kmaw Studies, the suppressed Mi’kmaw stories and history were told and the course made an important relationship between school staff and community members to break an oppressive silence. An absence of voice was also evident in the pressures and emotional forces that made it difficult for me to articulate my experiences teaching Mi’kmaw Studies. The silence was my survival strategy and my resistance to the pressures I was experiencing. I found my voice and broke my silence by telling the research story through an unconventional approach to scholarly writing. I concur with Douglas Gosse, who writes: “I hadn’t fully realized that by breaking silences, I also had to break with academic traditions, which can be rigid and, in my view, contrary to true academic curiosity and inquiry.”8 To remain silent and not tell the story would be a passive response to the struggles and challenges the working group experienced as a result of their focus on Mi’kmaw knowledge in the community school. If there is silence, the work can be passed off as unimportant and irrelevant to current classroom practices. Telling the research story in a way that honours Mi’kmaw understandings of the world and breaks the silence is an important part of our collaboration. The Place of the Sacred In describing the writing of Kiowa author N. Scott Momaday, Blaeser writes that silence is “a sacred presence … the very fibre of communication” between two entities.9 It was in this silence that I learned, relearned, and remembered the interconnectivity of all things within the Circle of Life. This silence was a place

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to renew my relationship with other beings. It was a time of “deep listening and hearing with more than the ears.”10 It was a time during which I could hear and learn from Mi’kmwesu, the Salmon People, and Crow. Silence communicates that which has not been or cannot be put into words and it considers that which is privileged and that which is denied.11 Silence took me to a spiritual place. Kathy Hodgson-Smith describes this connection between silence and the spiritual: “in silence we sit and think and pray for strength and guidance.”12 Todd reminded me to smudge each day as a way of dealing with the negativity that I was experiencing. Smudging both enabled me to let go of negativity and to reconnect to all life, which I did by remembering my connections and repairing or strengthening my relationships. After quieting myself and listening in silence, I was able to communicate with those who do not speak in human voices: Mi’kmwesu, the Salmon People, and Crow. It is in this way that I learned to talk to the land and, as Frank had promised, it talked back to me. It was through reverence that I heard its voice. The disruption of my thinking moved me from a Eurocentric perspective of knowledge to learning and accepting that knowledge also comes from other living things, such as the Salmon People and Crow. The act of paying attention to animals “move[s] us away from [a] human only approach to understanding.”13 After I recognized the narrow limits of my understanding, I could listen with humility. In opening myself to the truths of those other voices, I learned from their teachings. When I acknowledged these teachings as valid, my sense of what knowledge is and how knowledge is acquired began to change. I recognized that I was learning in more ways than through my senses. I began to pay closer attention to my intuition and my dreams, and I valued these as ways in which new knowledge came to me. This acceptance came in the sacred presence of silence – the place where the interconnectivity of all things is acknowledged. These new understandings impacted

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my participation in the collaborative process because I continued to broaden my understanding of what knowledge is and where it comes from. These experiences enabled me to more deeply respect and learn from all entities and to carry the responsibilities that come with the teachings given to me. t r i c k s t e rs In reflective silence I can more fully appreciate the teachings of the trickster characters: Mi’kmwesu, Salmon People, and Crow. I reread the story, looking for what Vizenor refers to as the “watch words of a trickster signature”: contradiction, balance, between, humour, imagination, comic, communal, transformation, dream, mythic, imagination, and survival.14 These words indicate trickster space and a disturbance to the routine ways of doing or thinking; they signify surprise. The disruptions in the research came in the form of inside-out lessons and interruptions that helped me to better understand how to work collaboratively and how to make educational space for Mi’kmaw knowledge. Mi’kmwesu’s Teachings Through her actions, Mi’kmwesu reminded me that interconnectedness and interrelationships are the threads that weave the fabric of life and there is a real need to repair and strengthen those relationships. I began my research by thinking about the curriculum we would develop and the ways in which we would bring people into our work. Mi’kmwesu disturbed my linear thinking to show me that there was no separation of the work from the people or from other life forms, and that curriculum and relationships within the Circle of Life are inextricably connected. In my experience, the challenges of our work in education were mitigated when Mi’kmwesu spun cocoons of respectful relationships around us. These cocoons were safe places where

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transformation, one of Vizenor’s trickster watchwords, was nurtured. One of the transformations I experienced was a change in focus from developing curriculum to honouring relationships. I became convinced that the work of developing and keeping good relationships with all people is a foundation of the educational endeavours we were undertaking; without such relations, our efforts would be pointless. This conviction extended to an awareness of my responsibility for keeping good relations between myself and all other entities, including the trees, the lake, and the smallest of creatures such as the wood tick. I had to live the teachings of interconnectivity in order to know and, in turn teach, from a Mi’kmaw perspective. I was also obliged to keep myself emotionally and mentally balanced in order to participate in our collective work. The Teachings of the Salmon People The Salmon People turned my preconceived ideas, about learning, inside out. The salmon eggs were chosen as the focus of the collaborative learning project between Wildcat First Nation and North Queens School because all people in the area could relate to the presence of salmon in the local waterways. The fish were a common point of life on the land. For me there was an unspoken, perhaps even an unconscious, assumption that people would share knowledge and learn more about the fish. The research story initially follows this type of reasoning by providing a description of the salmon project, the observation of the development of the eggs, and the numerous aspects of the learning circles as we came together to learn more about salmon. When the Salmon People arrived in the story they described people’s actions and the state of human relationships. Rather than people watching the fish, it was the fish reflecting humanity back to us. The salmon were a voice that represented other beings in the Circle of Life, giving an “other-than-human” perspective on events. US philosopher David Abram explains that

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“because we are limited by our human senses, our nervous system, and our two arms and our two legs, [animals are] another set of senses, another angle from which [humans] can see and hear and sense what’s going on in the surrounding ecology.”15 It was the voice of the Salmon People that reversed my understanding of learning about something to an understanding of learning from that entity. Albert Marshall confirmed this experience of where learning comes from when he explained to me the difference between superficial learning and deep learning. He also explained that the salmon were historically both a food source and part of a Mi’kmaw ceremonial expression of gratitude. This reminded me of the physical and the spiritual aspects of life as well as the reverence that I must have for all living things. What I learned from the Salmon People extended far beyond my observations of the hatching salmon eggs. They reminded me to accept the gifts that all creatures bring to the Circle of Life, to take no more than what I need, and to accept responsibility for all in the Circle. The Salmon People spoke of balance and, through their stories, they wove a connection between the past and the present, the human and the non-human, and the giving and taking of life. Through the stories they offered, they reminded us of our traditions, our Ancestors and Elders, our responsibility to the land and all that is on the land, the interconnectivity of all life, and the importance of our language and our prayers. I carry this knowledge from the Salmon People with me. The Salmon disrupted my understanding of where knowledge comes from by speaking through my dreams and, in so doing, they ensured that I received knowledge in ways other than through reading and writing – the type of pedagogy that is emphasized in Eurocentric formal education. In accepting the knowledge that came to me through dreams, I legitimated this pedagogy within myself. By including the Salmon People in the

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research story, I honoured them and the knowledge they bring to humans. After this change in my understanding of where knowledge comes from, and once I accepted my dreams as a source of knowledge, it became easier for me to open my thinking to legitimate other sources of knowledge, including meditation and prayer, as well as the knowledge embodied by all things in existence. Crow’s Teachings Crow brought laughter to the story. Each time I shared various drafts of this research story with others, the listeners laughed at Crow’s remarks and actions. Laughter kept the atmosphere of our collaboration light hearted and entertaining. The joking and good-natured teasing within the working group contributed to good feelings and “good and right relations.” The dynamics between Crow and me illustrated the tension between formal education, as reflected in my scholarly pursuits, and the informal ways of learning that were the underpinnings of Crow’s jests. Our banter typified the longstanding disconnect between researchers and First Nations communities. Crow mischievously challenged my Eurocentric thinking and challenged the academic rules that were guiding my writing efforts. Crow poked fun at my attempts to polish the research story, to analyze it, and to insightfully develop a theory to explain our collaborative work. Crow embodied “the sacred clowning that deflates pomposity,”16 ensuring that the researcher would not be considered an infallible expert. After listening to this research story, Jamie exclaimed, “I love Crow! He’s funny the way he gives you a hard time.”17 It was humbling to be upstaged by a crow! Crow’s constant presence challenged my single-minded focus of centring and legitimating Mi’kmaw education within the school. He brought chaos to the story and to my thinking. Ray Barnhardt and Oscar Kawagley reason that chaos opens

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systems to innovation and change.18 My experience is that chaos seeps through education’s cracks and pries open the space needed to bring Aboriginal knowledge into education. Chaos disrupts our thinking and thus is a tool to decolonize one’s mind. I now realize that the process of decolonizing my mind was marked by ambiguity and confusion. Crow became my reminder that there was a way through the confusion and contradiction. It was through Crow, the trickster, that I reframed my perspective in order to change my thinking. Crow’s Weasel stories disrupted the flow of “my story” and usurped my role as the storyteller. The Weasel stories illustrated the chasm between the understanding and values of teachers in weasel’s school and his family in the community. References to “That Teacher” and “Those Parents” exemplified the stereotypes in Weasel’s world. Crow’s Weasel stories presented the challenges of our work without identifying particular human individuals, affirming that it is the issues and not the individuals that are the focus of our collaborative work. By not blaming or criticizing individuals but embodying the educational issues in a trickster story, Crow taught me a valuable lesson about maintaining good and respectful human relationships. The move from negativity toward others to focusing on concerns about education was the biggest change I noticed in the relationships between community members and school staff. While rereading the research story and further reflecting on it, I realized something more about the dynamics between Crow and myself. As the storyteller and researcher, I assumed a responsibility for control of the research story so that it would be told in the way that I assumed it should be told – an assumption based on my notions of what research is supposed to be, notwithstanding the fact that I was deploying an alternative format. I was slow to accept and value Crow’s stories as legitimate teachings because they were different from mine and did not fit within my concept of what research is. I was acting in much the

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same way as those who dismiss Mi’kmaw teachings as illegitimate knowledge for teaching in public school. My reluctance to include Crow’s stories helped me understand the hesitation that classroom teachers may experience and their resistance to embracing Aboriginal knowledge in their curriculum. Trickster, in all the forms, convinced me that knowledge can come through many means, challenged me to embrace opposites, contradictions, and ambiguities as catalysts for thinking in new ways, and urged me to share laughter and good feelings in all my relationships. Since experiencing the research and writing my research story, I now pause and reconsider when I perceive what Barbara Alice Mann calls “one-thinking”: the single-minded, one-truthonly reasoning that is present when a Eurocentric worldview dominates life. She writes, “Euro-Americans cannot see two of anything without immediately assuming that one of them must be the deadly enemy of the other. Only one can be legitimate for them; the other is flawed, an impostor that must be rooted out.”19 Freeing my mind from conventional ways of thinking about education enabled me to consider new ways of bringing a Mi’kmaw worldview into an education system that is dominated by a Eurocentric worldview. s to ry t e l l i n g as t h e r e s e a rc h to o l Storytelling, as an alternate format of inquiry, opens alternate spaces for learning, disrupts form, and decolonizes writing. It reflects an Aboriginal worldview and pedagogy,20 and thus gives legitimacy to Mi’kmaw knowledge and honours Mi’kmaw ways of knowing. Using this methodology demonstrates my efforts to “learn and honour the ways of my people in the manner they were meant to be learned”21 and benefits the Mi’kmaw community, our children, and our grandchildren. Carole Leclair explains that our stories and the reality they represent reflect our

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Aboriginal consciousness.22 Using story as a research method nurtured this consciousness. Chippewa author Lenore Keeshig-Tobias writes: “stories are power. They reflect the deepest, the most intimate perceptions, relationships, and attitudes of a people. Stories show how a people, a culture, thinks.”23 I experienced the power of the research story to bring people together and to teach us. Storytelling supported several aspects of the research, which were important in learning more about working together to centre and legitimate Mi’kmaw knowledge in education. Narrative, as a research tool, allowed for multiple voices and multiple truths, it brought about wholeness, it made the role of scholar and educator synonymous with storyteller, and it provided an opportunity for co-researchers to include their truths. Multiple Voices and Multiple Truths Stories entice people because everyone is part of a story and everyone has a story. I watched the research story drawing people in, engaging both Mi’kmaw community members and school staff. Everyone wanted to hear a good story. Storytelling is a space where many voices can participate. The research story wove together the voices of Mi’kmaw community members who often are not heard in the public school curriculum. It also raised the suppressed voices of the past in our teaching of Mi’kmaw history. My use of storytelling methodology also validated voices that communicate in a different way, such as those of Crow, Mi’kmwesu, and the Salmon People. Stories can accommodate multiple truths. If research is a truth-seeking activity, then stories, including trickster stories, are at the centre of research, and trickster is part of the multiplicity of truth. The research story represented the perspectives of the Mi’kmaw community and the school staff, and in doing so, it encompassed both Aboriginal and Western worldviews. As Canadian scholar Dalene Swanson writes: “narrative opens

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up a space for responsibly addressing the moral, political, and ethical paradoxes and dilemmas of the human experience through embracing pluralized perspectives in ways that give meaning and form to those experiences as lived.”24 As the research story is retold, each listener learns from the story based on his/her own needs and place in his/her own learning journey. As I share this version of the story, the people who lived it with me add to it. Often they make comments that begin with words such as “remember …” or “what about …” and are followed by a story that connects or adds to a particular part of our research experience. This reminds me of the learning circles, when participants shared their memories, knowledge, and thoughts about salmon. The retelling and reliving of the research through respectful relationships is a collaborative experience and, as such, it is an opportunity to enhance our relational skills. Connelly and Clandinin explain that researchers’ stories can be re-storied through the reflective research process. “I tell you a researcher’s story. You tell me what you heard and what it meant to you. I hadn’t thought of it this way, am transformed in some important way, and tell the story differently the next time I encounter an interested listener or talk again with my participant.”25 In each telling and retelling, we weave the threads of relationship back and forth among ourselves. In living and creating new stories, we spin new threads that bind us together. When we recognize that we are creating and living a new story, we have darned together the holes and gaps in the fabric of interconnectivity. We heal. At that point, the story has taken on a life of its own and it becomes the teacher. Elder Shirley Sterling says that a story “travels from person to person and it … takes a different shape, but there’s something the same.”26 In this way story has the power to become a teacher and to emotionally heal the story participants.27

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The story enabled us to see our collaborative experiences holistically; it was “our” story. We could see ourselves as connected to each other and we better understood the importance of working together. The barriers between the community members and the staff began to crumble from the force of a collective story of learning. As I contemplated the healing that took place, I thought of Barry Lopez’s story about Crow and Weasel, particularly the part where Badger speaks to the two characters. “The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other’s memory. This is how people care for themselves.”28 We needed the story because the story reconnected us to our traditions, to one another, and to all things in the Web of Life. The collective retellings of the story are like the learning circles where multiple truths and multiple perspectives were shared. I watched as people were developing deeper relationships. When sharing our truths and listening to the truths of others, we open our minds and our hearts to knowledge that is outside of our own personal understandings. In opening our hearts and minds, we (re)search or search again for learning and understanding between one another. Sharing gives legitimacy to different ways of knowing and understanding the world. Relationship work requires that we think in a new way in order to heal and strengthen our connections to one another. Respectful relationships are the fabric from which we can recreate education. Wholeness Stories bring us together with all our relations and we share. It is in story that parts come together as a whole. It is a place of balance. Gerald Vizenor explains: “Balance is a symbolic healing

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sense that life can go on” and “by seeking balance in and through story, then we can continue.”29 In the reciprocity of telling and listening, there is an acknowledgment that begins the healing or the repairing and strengthening of relationship threads. I have reflected on the values that address wholeness: respect and reciprocity. These are the underpinnings of Indigenous philosophy, a philosophy that Willie Ermine refers to as “Indigenous narrative.” He writes that Indigenous narrative has “rich potential for new, often forgotten paradigms of knowledge that have the potential to benefit all of humanity.”30 The research story is important because it speaks to the importance of people working together in respectful ways in order to focus on Mi’kmaw knowledge in formal education. It is our willingness and ability to develop harmonious relationships that is the core of the work. Storytelling is a very powerful way we learn from each other and exchange and build knowledge. Collaborative stories, those created through respect and sharing, bring about balance and harmony and create healing that restores relationships. In the research story lines, we could weave the past and present, the school and the Mi’kmaw community, the Indigenous worldviews and the Western/Eurocentric worldview, and the celebrations and the challenges. Both Albert Marshall’s notion of Two-Eyed Seeing and Michael Garrett’s Rule of Opposites offer philosophical approaches that embrace wholeness. I now think of collaboration as intentionally and diligently weaving together our stories by repairing and strengthening the fabric of our lives. A cornerstone of Mi’kmaw knowledge, the interrelationship of all things, was signified in our collaboration. Rather than packaging Mi’kmaw knowledge in curriculum and offering it up to students, we lived the knowledge through our work.

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The Role of the Researcher When I approached the research, I considered that, as a researcher, I was taking on the responsibility to bear witness and to tell what I had witnessed. Tina said, “You tell them. You tell them what we can do; what we did.”31 This guided my storyteller role to assert the ability and the strength of the community. I was going to tell the world about Wildcat First Nation, about the salmon project in the community, about how the community was the site of learning, and how it opened itself to the school and the greater community so all those interested could join the circle. Deborah Ceglowski tells the story of what she learned from Norm Deinzen in a methodology class. “You couldn’t research and write in the way he advocated and produce a research report that resembled a standard model of writing up interviews and field notes. He was calling us to work with those we studied in new ways, to understand our work as entering into relationship with others, and writing in novel and inviting ways.”32 As the researcher, I immersed myself in the power of story to guide my learning. I identify with Robin Cox’s description of herself as “a scholar, weaving together the stitches of the disintegrated whole.”33 The threads of this story have taught me well. After reading the research report to Todd, he smiled and remarked, “You got it. That’s it!”34 Crow nods in agreement.

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“So, you want to know about developing Aboriginal education?” Crow says. I nod my head. “Did you ever hear the story about the people and the salmon?” And then he begins …35 Msit Nokmaq

Notes

crow’s first story 1 Unless otherwise noted, the stories in this study are modernday stories that make use of traditional Mi’kmaw characters and themes (see Whitehead, Stories from the Six Worlds and Rand, Legends of the Micmacs. These stories came to me as thoughts and dreams during the course of this research and writing. 2 Aboriginal refers to the First People of the land, specifically the country of Canada. Indigenous is used to refer to Aboriginal people globally and Mi’kmaq is used to refer to the Aboriginal people within whose nation this research took place. 3 The voice of Crow came to me during my thinking, reflecting, and dreaming throughout this research. He gave me teachings and challenged my thinking. Albert Marshall, Murdena Marshall, and Marilyn Iwama explain that within Mi’kmaw stories, “[C]row is not only a legendary figure or representation of morality. Crow is a being with a spirit. This means that crow – or tree – when spoken of in gendered English, is ‘he’ or ‘she,’ not ‘it’” (“Approaching Mi’kmaq Teachings on the Connectiveness of Humans and Nature, 176). 4 Weasel is a traditional character in Mi’kmaw stories. 5 Stewart-Harawira describes the energy that flows between all entities as a “sacred thread” (“Of Order and Being,” 37). Ermine describes this energy as “a mysterious force that connects the totality of existence” (“Aboriginal Epistemology,” 103).

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6 “The story was told in a way so that the story became a teacher” (Elder Ellen White in Archibald, “Coyote Learns to Make a Story Basket,” 208). chapter one 1 Kespukwitk is the region of the Mi’kmaw Nation more commonly known as southwest Nova Scotia. (The northeastern part of Turtle Island is also referred to as Atlantic Canada.) Henderson states that Mi’kma’ki translates to “space or land of friendship” (“Ayukpachi,” 257). He describes it as 20,000 miles that, in modern terms, is the land now called Newfoundland, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, northern Maine, Prince Edward Island, the Magdalene archipelago, and the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec (note 23). On the distinction between Mi’kmaq and Mi’kmaw: “The definite article ‘the’ suggests that ‘Mi’kmaq’ is the undeclined form indicated by the initial letter ‘m.’ When declined in the singular, it reduces to the following forms: nikmaq – my family; kikmaq – your family; wikma – his/her family. The variant form Mi’kmaw plays two grammatical roles: 1) it is the singular of Mi’kmaq and 2) it is an adjective in circumstances where it precedes a noun (e.g. Mi’kmaw people, Mi’kmaw treaties, Mi’kmaw person, etc.).” Bernard, Francis, and Wilmot, Mi’kmaw Resource Guide, 2. 2 Wattchow, “Many Voices Speak the River,” 12. 3 Like Cole, “I do not presume to speak for the fish” (“Aboriginalizing Methodology,” 456). Metallic explains, “In Mi’kmaq I say ‘the salmon is my brother.’ If the salmon is my brother, then he’s no different than my uncle, my cousin, my aunt’s husband who passed away” (“Strengthening Our Relations in Gespe’gewa’gi,” 68). The voice of the salmon, as represented in this writing, came to me as thoughts and dreams during the course of this research and writing. Their voice contributes to the teachings of the research story by affirming the relationship between the salmon and the people and by providing another lens through which to observe human interaction within the Circle of Life. 4 Murdena Marshall explains, “In every nation, tribe, or a group of people, there is a set of rules that certain groups

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function by. This set of rules can come in the form of values, customs and oral traditions. In some nations, there are known as codes of ethics. Under one or more of these titles, a society recognizes and utilizes these modes to better function within their own world. It is these rules that make one’s perspective of a world view so unique. In the Mi’kmaq world, these rules are known as oral traditions. To honour these oral traditions allow one to view the world through the window of tribal consciousness. It is through this window that our behaviour has been governed, a behaviour which is acceptable within our own tribal world. It is critical that we are accepted in this world, initially. It is vital in order for one to survive in this world to learn this set of rules that has been given to us by the Creator” (cited in Native Council of Nova Scotia, Mi’kmaq Fisheries, 7–8). Kimberley Wilde cited in McGregor, “Coming Full Circle,” 387. This is a reference to Elder Frank Meuse of Bear River First Nation. Journal entry October 10, 2009. Absolon and Willet, “Putting Ourselves Forward,” 97. Ibid., 98. I use the terms Eurocentric worldview and Western worldview interchangeably. Lawrence and Anderson, “Introduction to Indigenous Women,” 6. Public school refers to any provincially funded and regulated school. Battiste explains, “Cognitive imperialism denies many groups of people their language and cultural integrity and maintains the legitimacy of only one language, one culture, and one frame of reference” (“Enabling the Autumn Seed,” 20). Cognitive imperialism leads to cognitive assimilation and results in what Isbister (in “A Piece of the Pie”) describes as Aboriginal students learning to feel, act, and think like Europeans. In 1999 the Mi’kmaq Education Act returned jurisdiction for on-reserve education to the Mi’kmaq Nation. Of the thirteen bands in Nova Scotia, ten have schools within their communities (Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey, n.d.). The small number of children and youth living in Wildcat First Nation makes it

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Notes to Pages 6–11 unfeasible for the community to have its own school and, therefore, the students attend the local public school. Battiste, “Indigenous Knowledge,” 9. Grande, “Red Pedagogy,” 236. The National Advisory Council on Indian Education (1983) as cited by Hampton, “Towards a Redefinition of Indian Education,” 10. Brant Castellano, Davis, and Lahache, “Conclusion: Fulfilling the Promise,” 255. A’tugwet: Discovering the Culture that Is Immune to Time. Directed by Sylvia Moore and produced by Nick Whynot. Caledonia, ns: North Queens Schools Enrichment Group, 2003. dvd. The Forest and the Trees: Teachings and Learnings from the Southwest Nova Biosphere Reserve. Directed and produced by Sylvia Moore. Caledonia, ns: North Queens Schools Enrichment Group, 2005. dvd. Atlantic Policy Congress of First Nations Chiefs Secretariat and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (director) and Learning Resources and Technology, Nova Scotia Department of Education (producer). Meeting of Nations. Halifax, ns: Nova Scotia Department of Education, 2006. Video.

chapter two 1 Graveline explains that “To see a Native speaking to a tree or a crow does not carry the message of mental imbalance, but rather is a ‘scientist’ engaged in ‘research’” (Circle Works, 54). 2 Battiste, “Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education,” 20. 3 Cajete, Look to the Mountain, 219. 4 Mihesuah and Cavender Wilson, “Introduction,” 5. 5 Battiste, Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education, 29. 6 Battiste, “Animating Sites of Postcolonial Education: Indigenous Knowledge and the Humanities.” 7 Jimenez Estrada, “The Tree of Life Methodology,” 44. 8 Clandinin and Connelly, Narrative Inquiry, 124. 9 See Little Bear, “Jagged World Views Colliding”; Lanigan, “Aboriginal Pedagogy”; Cajete, Look to the Mountain;

Notes to Pages 11–17

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

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Battiste, “Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education”; Stiffarm, As We See; Bishop, Collaborative Research Stories; Kovach, Indigenous Methodologies. Kovach, Indigenous Methodologies, 94. Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies, 144–5. Cajete, Look to the Mountain, 68. King, The Truth about Stories, 32. Four Arrows et al., “Brilliant or Bullshit!,” 17. Thomas, “Honouring the Oral Traditions of My Ancestors through Storytelling,” 242. See Chambers, “Research that Matters.” Hart, “Indigenous Worldviews, Knowledge, and Research,” 9. Absolon and Willett, “Putting Ourselves Forward,” 97. Bishop, Collaborative Research Stories, 23–4. Clandinin and Connelly, Narrative Inquiry, 19. Hodgson-Smith, “Issues of Pedagogy in Aboriginal Education,” 158. Various indigenous scholars make reference to the way we learn and know, such as Simpson, Anticolonial Strategies for the Recovery and Maintenance of Indigenous Knowledge; Struthers, Conducting Sacred Research; Battiste, Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education; Ermine, Aboriginal Epistemology; Stiffarm, As We See; Kovach, Indigenous Methodologies; and Hart, Indigenous Worldviews, Knowledge, and Research. Struthers, “Conducting Sacred Research,” 131. Clandinin and Connelly, Narrative Inquiry, 122–3. Vizenor, as cited in Blaeser, Gerald Vizenor; Graveline, Circle Works; and Iseke-Barnes, Unsettling Fictions.

chapter three 1 My conversations with Crow and the voices of Salmon are indicated in the heading of the sections in which Crow and Salmon appear. My own voice, expressed through journal writings, is referenced at the end of journal entries in sections throughout the study. 2 Journal entry 30 March 2009. 3 Kejimkujik National Park was created in 1967. It is located between Wildcat First Nation and Bear River First Nation,

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Notes to Pages 17–20 and it straddles the Mersey River. The park is a contested site as it sits on the traditional lands of the Mi’kmaq. Sections of land inside the park boundaries are sacred lands as they are the location of both numerous petroglyphs and burial grounds. In 1995 the park was recognized as a “Mi’kmaw cultural landscape,” as described by Parks Canada (“An Approach to Aboriginal Cultural Landscapes,” n.d., http:// www.pc.gc.ca/docs/r/pca-acl/sec3/sec3b_e.asp.), and it was subsequently designated as a national historic site. Personal communication, 15 April 2000. Metallic, “Strengthening Our Relations in Gespe’gewa’gi,” 68. Mi’kmaw storyteller Gilbert Sewell describes Mi’kmwesu (I use a spelling consistent with that of Whitehead, Stories from the Six Worlds) as a spirit of the woods, a trickster. See P. Grant (director) and K. Martin and M. Fukushima, M. (producers), Maq and the Spirit of the Woods. Montreal, qc: National Film Board of Canada. Video. When referencing Mi’kmwesu using a gendered pronoun, I use “she” (Marshall, Marshall, and Iwama, “Approaching Mi’kmaq Teachings on the Connectiveness of Humans and Nature”). Elder Todd Labrador tells of his father, Hereditary Chief and Elder Charlie Labrador saying: “If you look underground you will see that all the roots of all the trees and plants are spread out and touching one another. It is as if they are holding hands. We, too, need one another and reach out through our relationships in the world to support one another” (Todd Labrador, personal communication). Glooscap is a spiritual being with great power, referred to by Augustine in Oral History and Oral Traditions as “The First One Who Spoke.” Augustine explains that in the Mi’kmaq Creation Story, Glooscap’s presence was one of the seven stages of creation (1). Murdena Marshall, personal communication, 23 October 2009. Mi’kmaq historian and Elder Daniel Paul describes the regulations against students speaking the Mi’kmaq language (We Were Not the Savages, 258), the refusal of the school authorities to allow parents to withdraw children (261–3), and the many incidents of brutality that students endured (264–

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6). In Out of the Depths, Mi’kmaw residential school survivor Isabelle Knockwood describes the experiences of Mi’kmaw children at the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School in Nova Scotia. Knockwood includes “lies about myself and my people” and “withheld knowledge” (158) as some of the ways in which the school attempted to destroy the Mi’kmaq Nation. The school closed in 1967, leaving living memories of the school experience in families of present-day Mi’kmaw students. The legacy of residential schools is still with us, casting a long shadow (see Berger, A Long and Terrible Shadow) not only over the education of Aboriginal children but also over the relationships between schools and First Nations communities. Hare and Barman’s “Struggles within the Circle” reminds readers, “school for many Aboriginal people is much more an object of fear to be avoided than a place of learning” (340). Tina Dixon personal communication, 1 May 2008. Joseph, “A Jade Door,” 214. Journal notes, 7 May 2008. Todd Labrador personal communication, 8 May 2008. Archibald, “Coyote Learns to Make a Story Basket,” 134. Iseke-Barnes, “Pedagogies for Decolonizing,” 219. Iseke-Barnes, “Living and Writing Indigenous Spiritual Resistance,” 211. Baldwin, Storycatcher, 3. Graveline, Circle Works, 132. Journal entry, 15 May 2009. aptn Nation News, Mi’kmaq Identity: Finding the Answers, 4 July 2014. Augustine, “Silas T. Rand’s Work among the Mi’kmaq,” 45. Marshall, as cited in Collaborative Salmon Initiative Planning Committee, Dialogue on Plamu/Atlantic Salmon in Cape Breton, 17. Metallic, Strengthening Our Relations in Gespe’gewa’gi, 62. Cajete, Look to the Mountain, 83. Grande, “American Indian Identity and Intellectualism,” 357. Michell, “Nehithawak of Reindeer Lake, Canada”; journal entry, 7 April 2008.

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28 Tinker, “The Stones Shall Cry Out,” 122. 29 Prosper and Paulette, “The Mi’kmaq Relationship with Kat (American Eel),” 2. 30 Arguimault, as cited in Native Council of Nova Scotia, Mi’kmaq Fisheries, 5. 31 Ibid., 8. 32 Albert Marshall, as cited in the Collaborative Salmon Initiative Planning Committee, Dialogue on Plamu/Atlantic Salmon in Cape Breton, 12. 33 Metallic, Strengthening Our Relations in Gespe’gewa’gi, 67. 34 Albert Marshall, cited in the Collaborative Salmon Initiative Planning Committee, Dialogue on Plamu/Atlantic Salmon in Cape Breton, 12. 35 Metallic, Strengthening Our Relations in Gespe’gewa’gi, 69. 36 There are regional variations in pronunciation and spelling in the Mi’kmaw language. The spelling used here is from Metallic, Strengthening Our Relations in Gespe’gewa’gi 37 Ibid., 67. 38 Albert Marshall, cited in the Collaborative Salmon Initiative Planning Committee, Dialogue on Plamu/Atlantic Salmon in Cape Breton, 16. 39 The terms “Web of Life,” “Circle of Life,” and “Sacred Circle” are all refer to the interrelationship of all life and I use them interchangeably in this writing. 40 Cole, “aboriginalizing methodology,” 457. 41 Journal entry 9 June 2008. 42 Mussell, “Decolonizing Education,” 336. 43 See Prosper and Paulette, “The Mi’kmaq Relationship with Kat.” 44 Bear Nicholas, “The Assault on Aboriginal Oral Traditions,” 13. 45 Ibid., 33. 46 See Coates, The Marshall Decision and Native Rights. 47 Albert Marshall, personal communication, 23 October 2009. 48 Mi’kmaw Elder as cited in Metallic, Strengthening Our Relations in Gespe’gewa’gi, 63. 49 Indigenous Health Research Development Program, Ethical Guidelines for Aboriginal Research Elders and Healers Roundtable, 32.

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50 Maclean, as cited inWattchow, “Many Voices Speak the River,” 1. 51 Nmi’s is the Mi’kmaw word for older sister. 52 Little Bear, Naturalizing Indigenous Knowledge, 22. 53 Battiste, Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education, 18. 54 Prosper, Paulette, and Davis, “Sharing Is an Inherent Part of Mi’kmaq Culture,” 8. 55 Michell, “Nehithawak of Reindeer Lake,” 41. 56 Steinhauer, “Thoughts on an Indigenous Research Methodology,” 73. 57 Graveline, Circle Works, 148. 58 Archibald, “Coyote Learns to Make a Story Basket,” 10; journal entry, 21 April 2008. 59 Personal communication, 3 February 2009. 60 Little Bear, “Jagged World Views Colliding,” 80. 61 Archibald, Indigenous Storywork, 8. 62 Metallic, Strengthening Our Relations in Gespe’gewa’gi, 69. 63 Cited in Lopez, Arctic Dreams, 257. 64 See Hubbard, “Voices Heard in the Silence, History Held in the Memory”; and Kawagley, A Yupiaq World View, 139. 65 Weber-Pillwax, as cited in Battiste, Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education, 25. 66 Waziyatawin, “Relieving Our Suffering,” 193. 67 Michell, Nehithawak of Reindeer Lake, 36. 68 Metallic, Strengthening Our Relations in Gespe’gewa’gi, 61. 69 Hodgson-Smith, “Seeking Good and Right Relations,” 74. 70 Van Renterghem in Four Arrows, The Authentic Dissertation, 248. 71 Mussell, Decolonizing Education, 333; journal entry 13 March 2009. 72 LeClair as cited in Schneider, Stewart, and LeClair, “Whispering the Circle Back,” 38–9. 73 Archibald, Indigenous Storywork, 89. 74 Henderson et al., Mi’kmaq Dialogue: Cognitive Renewal, para. 1. Unpublished transcript held at the Mi’kmaq Resource Centre, Cape Breton University, Sydney, ns, 1993. 75 “Msit Nokmaq” means “all my relations” in English. Deloria writes that “we are all relatives” can be used as a research

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Notes to Pages 41–7 tool “when taken as a methodological tool for obtaining knowledge means that we observe the natural world by looking for relationships between various things in it. That is to say, everything in the natural world has relationships with every other thing and the total set of relationships makes up the natural world as we experience it” (“Relativity, Relatedness, and Reality,” 34); journal entry, 28 April 2009. Battiste, Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education, 29. Isbister, “A Piece of the Pie,” 79. Battiste, Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education, 15; and Cajete, Look to the Mountain, 208–9. Battiste, Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education, 30. Stewart-Harawira, “Cultural Studies, Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogies of Hope,” 156. Henderson, “Ayukpachi,” 259. Little Bear, “Jagged World Views Colliding,” 78. Journal entry 14 June 2008. Archibald, “Coyote Learns to Make a Story Basket,” 1–2. Bourgeois, as cited in Rheault, Anishinaabe Mino-Bimaadiziwin, 57. The Forest and the Trees: Teachings and Learnings from the Southwest Nova Biosphere Reserve. Directed and produced by Sylvia Moore. 2005. Caledonia, ns: North Queens Schools Enrichment Group. dvd. Guthrie Valaskakis writes, “it is the borrowed quality of Indian stories that stitches narrative to collective heritage, to a polyvocal past experienced in the present. Passed on through kinship and gossip, ceremony and social drinking, stories carry the experience of being Indian from generation to generation. And in Indian country, that experience is rooted in the continuity of a relationship with each other, with the land, and with non-Indians” (“Parallel Voices,” 286). Personal communication, 17 February 2009. Calliou, “Decolonizing the Mind,” 195. Journal entry, 19 May 2009.

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91 Burns, Toward a Redefinition of Formal and Informal Learning, para. 17. 92 Battiste, Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education, 5. 93 Battiste and Henderson, Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage, 91. 94 Sutherland, Worldview Skills, 147. 95 Ibid. 96 Ibid. 97 Gisday’wa, as cited in Gardner, “Where There Are Always Wild Strawberries,” 10. 98 Ireland, as cited in Little Bear, Naturalizing Indigenous Knowledge, 23. 99 Little Bear, Naturalizing Indigenous knowledge, 22. 100 This is a reference to Elder Frank Jermey of Wildcat First Nation. Frank passed on before the work on the salmon project began. This instance of remembering Frank and his stories reflects how Elders teach us, even when they have passed on to the spirit world. In this way their stories are a legacy to their children and their grandchildren. 101 Personal communication, March 15, 2009. 102 Grande, Red Pedagogy, 236. 103 Personal communication, 21 May 2008. 104 Lanigan, “Aboriginal Pedagogy,” 103. 105 Holmes, “Heart Knowledge, Blood Memory, and the Voice of the Land,” 41. 106 See Marshall, Marshall, and Iwama, “Approaching Mi’kmaq Teachings on the Connectiveness of Humans and Nature,” 176. 107 “The power of the story is gone if you are not teaching it the right way. It will just be a nice little story, like the white man calls a fairy tale, a myth, and that’s all it’s going to be” (Elder Ellen White, as cited by Archibald, “Coyote Learns to Make a Story Basket,” 209). 108 Henderson et al. explain, “You don’t have to feel compelled to fill in the silence” (Mi’kmaq Dialogue, para. 1). I think of Anna Lee Walters’s words: “When silence eventually moves us to speak, we know the power of silence and our own

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Notes to Pages 56–62 words. Remember both, we are told” (Talking Indian, 105; italics in original). “He [Vizenor] uses the word ‘silence’ itself repeatedly, the reader is required to imagine the scene, the heavy silence and its significance” (Blaeser, Gerald Vizenor, 22).

chapter four 1 Graveline explains that inside out stories are “what the Western mind would categorize as ‘mistakes.’ It is Traditional to teach through reversal, through Trickster tales” (Circle Works, 218). 2 Personal communication, 19 April 2011. 3 Personal communication, 31 August 2009. 4 Graveline, Circle Works, 132. 5 Indigenous Health Research Development Program, Ethical Guidelines, 55. 6 Martin, “The Little Boy Who Lived with Muini’skw,” 55. 7 Moses, “The Trickster’s Laugh,” 109. 8 Watters, “Reproducing Canada’s Colonial Legacy,” 60. 9 Journal entry, 31 August 2009. 10 Little Bear, Naturalizing Indigenous Knowledge, 20. 11 Battiste, Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education, 20. 12 Nova Scotia Department of Education, Mi’kmaw Studies 10, Implementation Draft. Halifax, ns: Nova Scotia Department of Education, 2002. 13 See Battiste, Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education; Barnhardt and Kawagley, “Culture, Chaos, and Complexity”; Little Bear, Jagged World Views Colliding; Lanigan, Aboriginal Pedagogy; Cajete, Look to the Mountain; Kovach, Being Indigenous in the Academy; Iseke-Barnes, Pedagogies for Decolonizing; and HodgsonSmith, “Seeking Good and Right Relations.” 14 Simpson, Anticolonial Strategies for the Recovery and Maintenance of Indigenous Knowledge, 380. 15 Barnhardt, “Creating a Place for Indigenous Knowledge in Education,” 119. 16 Battiste, Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education, 18. 17 Barnhardt and Kawagley, “Culture, Chaos, and Complexity,” para. 26.

Notes to Pages 62–72

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18 See Little Bear, Jagged World Views Colliding; Lanigan, Aboriginal Pedagogy; Cajete, Look to the Mountain; Kovach, Being Indigenous in the Academy. 19 Ermine, A Critical Examination of the Ethics in Research Involving Indigenous Peoples, 4. 20 Battiste and Henderson, Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage, 91. 21 Journal entry, 15 December 2008. 22 Running records is a procedure to evaluate oral reading ability. 23 Dion, Braiding Histories, 55. 24 Monture-Angus, Thunder in My Soul, 22. 25 A reference to Elder Frank Meuse. 26 Journal entry, 14 September 2008. 27 Mihesuah and Wilson, “Introduction,” 2. 28 Lightning, “Compassionate Mind,” 216. 29 Is the Crown at War with Us? Directed and produced by Alanis Obomsawin. Montreal: National Film Board of Canada, 2002. 30 Journal entry, 25 April 2009. 31 Baldwin, Storycatcher, 7. 32 Brant Castellano, “Ethics of Aboriginal Research.” 33 Ibid., 103; journal entry, 4 April 2011. 34 Metallic, Strengthening Our Relations in Gespe’gewa’gi, 59. 35 Personal communication, 9 October 2009. 36 Journal entry, 16 February 2009. 37 Tinker explains, “Indian dreams and visions have to do not with the past but with the ‘from-now-on’ of the person who experiences them” (“The Stones Shall Cry Out,” 121). He further clarifies that “this is a fundamental point that is not understood by white scholars attempting to interpret the Indian experience” (note 27). 38 Mi’kmaw is an oral language. This written version of the song is from Atlantic Canada’s First Nations Help Desk, http://firstnationhelp.com/kepmitetmnej.html. 39 Sasakamoose and Waskewitch, Indigenous Perspectives on Language Learning and Teaching, 19. 40 Rheault, Anishinaabe Mino-Bimaadiziwin, xviii. 41 Little Bear, Jagged World Views Colliding, 82. 42 Ibid., 78.

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Notes to Pages 73–90

43 Eder, “Bringing Navajo Storytelling Practices into Schools,” 280. 44 Burns, Toward a Redefinition of Formal and Informal Learning, para. 19. 45 Ibid. 46 Personal communication, 15 March 2009. 47 Van Mann, Researching Lived Experience, 113. 48 Graveline, Circle Works, 185. 49 Battiste, Animating Sites of Postcolonial Education, 8–9. 50 Guno, “In the Spirit of Sharing,” 14. 51 See Nelson, “Ravens, Storms, and the Ecological Indian at the National Museum of the American Indian”; King, The Truth about Stories; and Valaskakis, “Parallel Voices.” 52 Journal entry, 14 April 2009. 53 Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies, 140. 54 Graveline, Circle Works, 250. 55 Ursula Johnson, “I Am an Aboriginal Artist.” Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. February 7, 2012. 56 Augustine, “Grandfather Was a Knowing Christian.” 57 Personal communication, 16 January 2008. 58 Personal communication, 10 October 2008. 59 Personal communication, 3 February 2009. 60 Ibid. 61 Brass, “Put on the Kettle,” 79. 62 Hodgson-Smith, “Seeking Good and Right Relations,” 101. 63 Personal communication, 15 April 2000. 64 aptn Nation News, Mi’kmaq Identity: Finding the Answers, 4 July 2014. 65 Personal communication, 31 August 2009. 66 Metallic, Strengthening Our relations in Gespe’gewa’gi, 60. 67 Ermine, A Critical Examination of the Ethics in Research Involving Indigenous Peoples, 80. 68 Graveline, Circle Works, 250. 69 Personal communication, 9 July 2009. 70 Ireland, Moving from the Head to the Heart, 74. 71 Hodgson-Smith, “Seeking Good and Right Relations.” 72 Steinhauer cites Stan Wilson from the 2002 Indigenous Scholars Conference as saying, “When you are asked to do

Notes to Pages 90–106

73 74

75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100

163

something, even something you might be uncomfortable with, you need to do it, and do it the best way you know how” (Steinhauer, Thoughts on an Indigenous Research Methodology, 69). Personal communication, 10 October 2008. Journal entry, 16 February 2008. Jode Kechego’s presentation was entitled “Everyone Working Together: Pathways to Respect and Understanding with Indigenous Youth.” Benham, “Mo’olelo,” 525–6. Kovach, Indigenous Methodologies, 99. Personal communication, 23 October 2009. Cole, “aboriginalizing methodology,” 459. Rheault, Anishinaabe Mino-Bimaadiziwin, 21. Indigenous Health Research Development Program, Ethical Guidelines, 48. Waziyatawin, Relieving Our Suffering, 193. Graveline, Circle Works, 164. Ermine, A Critical Examination of the Ethics in Research Involving Indigenous Peoples, 53. As cited in Steinhauer, Thoughts on an Indigenous Research Methodology, 69. Large boulders. Tinker, The Stones Shall Cry Out, 107. Ibid., 109. Henderson, Ayukpachi, 258. Graveline, Circle Works, 56. Personal communication, 2 January 2010. Ermine, A Critical Examination of the Ethics in Research Involving Indigenous Peoples, 53. Rheault, Anishinaabe Mino-Bimaadiziwin, 74. Wilson, “Reclaiming Our Humanity,” 177. Nelson, Ravens, Storms, and the Ecological Indian, 48. Metallic, Strengthening Our Relations in Gespe’gewa’gi, 61. Cole, “aboriginalizing methodology,” 457. Bruce Leslie, “Wisdom of the Grandmothers.” Ideas. cbc Radio, aired 14 May 2001. Graveline, Circle Works, 130. Cole, “aboriginalizing methodology,” 457. Greg Sarris describes his teaching-learning relationship with

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Notes to Pages 106–13

Elder Mabel McKay. He explains to her that there has to be a theme in the life story about her that he is writing. “A theme is a point that connects all the dots, ties up all the stories,” Sarris says to McKay. McKay responds: “That’s funny. Tying up all those stories. Why somebody want to do that?” (Archibald, Indigenous Storywork, 152). 101 Janine Metallic, personal communication, 2 January 2010. 102 Graveline writes, “All of nature is in us, all of us is in nature” (Circle Works, 56). 103 Ermine writes, “As well, it is the intent to identify the points of agreement at the confluence of cultures where understandings can be worked on in the pursuit of emancipation and the social realization of the human potentiality” (“A Critical Examination of the Ethics in Research Involving Indigenous Peoples,” 30).

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

chapter five Archibald, “Coyote Learns to Make a Story Basket,” 94. Personal communication, 23 October 2009. Gregory Cajete, Look to the Mountain, 102. Rheault, Anishinaabe Mino-Bimaadiziwin. Ireland recounts how an Elder explained that Ireland did not have to reclaim her culture but rather, “‘It’s all there, everything you need to know is right there – you just need to ask the questions and the answers will come.’ She taught me how to pose questions before sleep, reminding me: ‘Don’t forget to ask to remember the answer when you wake up’” (Ireland 2009, 5); journal entry, 29 April 2008. Hampton, Towards a Redefinition of Indian Education, 37. Mussell, “Decolonizing Education,” 333. Michell, Nehithawak of Reindeer Lake, 36. See Ermine, “A Critical Examination of the Ethics in Research Involving Indigenous Peoples,” 12. See ibid., 8, iv, and 122. Barnhardt and Kawagley, “Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Alaska Native Ways of Knowing,” figure 2. Kawagley, A Yupiaq World View, 2. Ibid., 134. Monture-Angus, Thunder in My Soul, 47.

Notes to Pages 113–20

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15 McGregor, “Transformation and Re-creation,” 67. 16 Kovach, Being Indigenous in the Academy, 58. 17 Battiste, “Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education,” 7. 18 Gross, “Teaching American Indian Studies to Reflect American Indian Ways of Knowing and to Interrupt Cycles of Genocide,” 122. 19 Guthrie Valaskakis, “Parallel Voices,” 287. 20 Ibid. 21 Michell, Nehithawak of Reindeer Lake, 42. 22 Albert Marshall, Murdena Marshall, and Marilyn Iwama, Approaching Mi’kmaq teachings on the connectiveness of humans and nature, 177. 23 Albert Marshall in Two-Eyed Seeing: Knowledge Sharing Series Video No. 1 (Cape Breton University: Institute for Integrative Science and Health, 2006). dvd. 24 Cheryl Bartlett in ibid. 25 Ermine, A critical examination of the ethics in research involving Indigenous Peoples, 122. 26 Ibid., 122–3. 27 Ibid., 112. 28 Little Bear, Jagged World Views Colliding, 79. 29 Monture-Angus, Thunder in My Soul, 51. 30 Blaeser, Gerald Vizenor, 162. 31 Ibid., 152. 32 Ibid., 162. 33 Ibid., 148. 34 Garrett, “Reflection by the Riverside,” 24–5. 35 Garrett and Garrett, Medicine of the Cherokee, 215. 36 Little Bear, Jagged World Views Colliding, 85. chapter six 1 Hodgson-Smith describes the impact of dreams: “Some dreams are significant because upon waking we are different, we see things differently because of the dream” (“Seeking Good and Right Relations,” 56). 2 Referring to the way in which the Mi’kmaq traditionally discussed issues and made decisions, Mi’kmaw scholar Stephen Augustine explains: “Those individuals sitting down together

166

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1 2 3 4 5

Notes to Pages 120–34 and saying we are going to make our words strong. They start talking individually until, as my great grandfather told me, they could only hear one voice.” Atlantic Policy Congress of First Nations Chiefs Secretariat and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (director) and Learning Resources and Technology, Nova Scotia Department of Education (producer). Meeting of Nations. Halifax, ns: Nova Scotia Department of Education, 2006. Video. Bishop, “Freeing Ourselves from Neo-colonial Domination in Research,” 206. King, The Truth about Stories, 153. Bishop, “Freeing Ourselves from Neo-colonial Domination in Research,” 207. Wilson, Research Is Ceremony, 118. Cox and Glenn, “The Creative Potential of Not Knowing,” 106. Personal communication, 19 February 2009. Kovach, Being Indigenous in the Academy, 65. postscript Battiste, “Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education,” 30–1. Iseke-Barnes, “Pedagogies for Decolonizing,” 141. Iseke-Barnes, “Living and Writing Indigenous Spiritual Resistance,” 233. Personal communication, 3 June 2010. Personal communication, 15 March 2009.

appendix 1 Cox and Neilsen, The Creative Potential of Not Knowing, 105. 2 Four Arrows et al., “Brilliant or Bullshit!,” 17 3 Clandinin and Connelly, Narrative Inquiry, 71. 4 Blaeser, Gerald Vizenor, 21. 5 Archibald, Indigenous Storywork, 89. 6 Cox and Neilsen Glenn, “The Creative Potential of Not Knowing,” 110. 7 Dion, Braiding Histories, 55. 8 Gosse, Barone, and Kaplan, “Breaking Silences,” 67. Italics in original.

Notes to Pages 134–48 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

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Blaeser, Gerald Vizenor, 21. Hart, Indigenous Worldviews, Knowledge, and Research, 10. Wattchow, “Many Voices Speak the River,” 10. Hodgson-Smith, “Seeking Good and Right Relations,” 52. Four Arrows, Jacobs, and Ryan, “Anthropocentrism’s Antidote,” 12. Blaeser, Gerald Vizenor, 143–4. Scott London, “The Ecology of Magic: An Interview with David Abram,” n.d., para. 29. http://www.scottlondon.com /interviews/abram.html. Mann et al., “Double Wampum,” 42. Personal communication, 15 January 2009. Barnhardt and Kawagley, Culture, Chaos, and Complexity. Mann et al., “Double Wampum,” 42. See Little Bear, Jagged World Views Colliding; Cajete, Look to the Mountain; Battiste, Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education; Stiffarm, As We See … Aboriginal Pedagogy; Bishop, Collaborative Research Stories; and Kovach, Being Indigenous in the Academy. Schneider et al., “Whispering the Circle Back,” 34. Ibid., 38. As cited in Archibald, “Coyote Learns to Make a Story Basket,” 101. Swanson, Moran, and Honan, “Voices in the Silence,” 88. Connelly and Clandinin, “Stories of Experience and Narrative Inquiry,” 9. Archibald, “Coyote Learns to Make a Story Basket,” 108. Ibid., 106. Lopez, Crow and Weasel, 60. Louis Owens as cited in Blaeser, Gerald Vizenor, 71; Blaeser, ibid. Ermine, “A Critical Examination of the Ethics in Research Involving Indigenous Peoples,” 53. Personal communication, 24 April 2009. Ceglowski, “Stories as Relationship,” 79. Cox and Neilsen Glenn, “The Creative Potential of Not Knowing,” 99. Personal communication, 5 December 2009. Patricia Monture-Angus writes: “This story does not have an end. It goes on and on and on. When I am done telling this

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Note to Page 148 one, I can tell you another one and another one and another one. I want to know and I want to believe that it makes a difference. That what I have struggled with will make a difference to my son and to his children and to those who come after. We have an obligation to those children to see that there is something here for them, but I am scared that is not happening and it is not happening fast enough” (Thunder in My Soul, 23).

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Index

Acadia Band, 3, 7 ancestors: acknowledging, 12, 23, 41, 99, 138; colonization of, 66–7; connecting with, 17, 74; teachings of, 47, 110 Battiste, Marie: Aboriginal languages, 34; balance in education, 113; cognitive imperialism, 6, 82, 151n12; curriculum, 63; education reform, 126–7; Indigenous consciousness, 41; Indigenous vs. Eurocentric knowledge, 47; Mi’kmaw education, 7; oppressive silence, 133–4; resistance, 80; sacred gifts, 42. See also education Bear River First Nation, 3, 4, 70, 72, 85, 87, 153n3 braid, 23, 46, 75. See also weave ceremony, 10, 31, 43, 87, 130, 158n87. See also smudge Circle of Life, 25, 29, 46, 51, 85–6, 92, 102, 112, 114,

118, 121, 134, 136–8, 150n3, 156n39. See also Web of Life; interconnectivity confluence, 112–13, 164n102 consciousness, 34, 51, 62, 114, 126, 137; colonized consciousness, 83, 88, 118; educational consciousness, 10; Indigenous consciousness, 6, 34, 41, 48, 142, 151; Trickster consciousness, 116–19, 128, 137, 142 Crow’s stories, xv, 19–20, 64, 83, 92, 124–5, 140; as pedagogical tools, 139–41; as trickster tales, 17–18, 32–4, 40, 52, 54–5, 84, 94–104, 106, 111–12, 115–16, 123 curriculum, 10, 63, 74, 76–7, 80–2, 102, 121, 124, 129, 136–7, 141–2, 145. See also Mi’kmaw Studies default thinking, 13, 84, 100– 1, 118

182 education: Aboriginal, 5–6, 13, 21, 102, 104, 125; decolonizing, 4, 10, 13, 37, 58–9, 63, 89, 96, 112, 123, 140–1; domination of Eurocentric knowledge in, 7, 47–8, 63, 81–2, 111–12, 141; Indigenous knowledge in, 6, 10, 84, 89, 129, 141; change in, 6, 10, 37, 63, 78, 81, 129, 140– 1. See also curriculum Elders, 27, 39, 43, 47, 91, 159n100; in schools, 66, 74– 5, 77, 84, 88; in the salmon project, 19, 22, 43; teachings of, 5, 27, 31, 51, 62, 138, 164n5. See also ancestors Ermine, Willie, 62, 69, 88, 101, 112, 114, 145, 149, 164n102 ethics, 18, 69, 150n4 fishing rights, 16, 22, 27–9, 30, 39, 66, 69, 87 healing, 21, 34–5, 37, 57–8, 85, 87–9, 120, 127, 143–5 “inside out” teachings, 12, 48, 49, 56, 94, 106, 136, 137, 160n1 interconnectivity, 22, 49, 85–6, 90–1, 93, 103, 121, 134, 135, 137 Kejimikujik, 17, 66, 74, 87, 153n3 King, Thomas, 11, 120

Index knowledge keepers. See Elders; teachers Labrador, Charlie, 7, 51, 87, 133, 154n8 language, 5, 6, 29, 34, 72, 81, 109–10, 138, 151n12, 154n10 Little Bear, Leroy, 34, 36, 42, 49, 58, 72, 115, 118 Marshall, Albert, 24, 26, 28, 30, 93, 108, 114, 138, 145 Marshall, Donald (and the Marshall Decision), 30 Marshall, Murdena, 20, 92–4, 97, 122, 150n4 Metallic, Fred, 18, 24, 27, 102 Mi’kmaq Studies: as decolonizing work, 63, 75, 80–3, 129, 134; impact on community, 124, 127; provincial curriculum, 59–60, 63, 68, 160n12; teaching of, 62–3, 69–75, 77–8, 84–3, 133. See also Native Studies Mi’kmaw Honour Song, 71 Mi’kmaw Nation, 3, 6–7, 11, 23, 62, 70-1, 74, 76, 150n1, 154n10 Mi’kmwesu, 19–20, 41, 46, 73, 90–2, 96, 114, 121, 125, 135–6, 142, 154n6 Native Studies, 3, 80, 127. See also Mi’kmaq Studies New Brunswick, 150n1 Nova Scotia, 59, 150n1, 154n10

Index pedagogy: Indigenous pedagogy, 12, 50, 127, 138, 141; in Mi’kmaw Studies, 60–1, 63, 69; decolonizing, 10, 112, 126; ways of knowing, 11–13, 40, 63, 71, 82, 91, 98, 100–1, 112, 120–1, 135, 139, 141, 144, 149n1. See also storytelling petroglyphs, 17, 66, 70, 74, 153n3 Potlo’tek First Nation, 7 reciprocity, 13, 33–4, 43–4, 47, 50, 81, 92, 109, 120, 145 relationships, 23–6, 35, 64, 69, 72, 76–7, 86, 91–4, 106, 108, 122–5, 137, 140–4, 154n8, 158n87; and knowledge, 93, 122; building and repairing, 14, 16, 21, 33–4, 41, 45–9, 51, 57, 84, 91, 96, 114, 120– 1, 124, 134–6, 145, 154n8; healthy, 38–9; interrelationship, 30, 40, 44, 51, 66, 81, 87, 92, 96, 136, 145, 157n75; to place, 5, 24, 30–2, 66, 130; respect in, 25–6, 39, 74–7, 103–4, 108, 127; with community, 9–10, 13, 17, 20–2, 43, 49–52, 57, 68, 84, 103, 126, 130–4, 144, 154n10; with salmon, 21, 25–6, 33, 47, 54, 94, 150n3. See also healing research methodology, 5, 9, 11, 20, 82, 92, 141–2 residential schools, 48, 128, 155n6

183 respect, 40, 44, 51, 70–2, 81, 88, 136; in collaboration, 13, 115, 133, 145; of all life, 42, 46, 86, 92, 98, 108; of differences, 37, 114; netukulimk, 34; when listening, 35, 38, 68, 120, 132. See also Marshall, Murdena salmon project: impact of ecological changes, 16, 25, 28, 29, 84, 109; salmon population, 16, 22, 27, 28; salmon release, 9–10, 27, 41–50, 82, 86, 107–8, 130; stories, 40– 1, 46–7, 91, 108–11; teachings of salmon, 27, 31, 48, 51, 137–9 silence, 73, 80, 132–6, 159n108; and oppression, 4, 58, 96; as a form of contemplation, 5, 39–40, 66, 116, 123, 133, 135–6; discomfort with, 39, 64–5; in storytelling, 54–5, 73 smudge, 10, 19, 22, 41, 43, 70, 77, 84–5, 130, 135. See also ceremony storytelling, 72; as methodology, 4–5, 11–12, 22, 92; as pedagogy, 22, 58, 62, 68, 107, 150n6; as research tool, 132, 141–2, 163n99; collaborative, 13, 120, 142–6 students: Aboriginal students, 7, 23, 50, 60, 155; assimilation of, 6, 151n12; teaching, 42, 45, 86, 127; learning in

184 community, 10, 49–52; resistance of, 63, 80. See also Mi’kmaw Studies; residential schools teachers, 23, 57, 64, 72, 74, 76, 78, 102, 126, 141; in salmon project, 10, 43, 82; salmon as, 108; working in Aboriginal education, 6, 13, 17, 57, 62, 80, 84, 126–7. See also Crow’s stories; Elders tobacco, 18, 27, 43, 47, 55, 82, 107 trickster, 14, 115–18, 122–4, 136–7, 140–2; trickster tales, 141–2. See also consciousness; Crow’s stories truth, 11–12, 58, 74, 77, 91, 98, 101, 115–16, 121, 133; multiple truths, 22, 37, 39, 82, 96, 114, 135, 141–4; responsibility to, 35–8 Two-Eyed Seeing, 45, 113–14, 128, 145

Index Weasel, xv, 9, 13, 64, 83, 92, 124–5, 140, 144, 149n4 weave: as interrelationship, 20, 40, 92, 121, 136, 143; in baskets, 56, 84; in story, 35, 68, 142–3, 145. See also braid; Mi’kmwesu Web of Life, 25, 30, 42, 86, 91, 111, 144, 156n39. See also Circle of Life; interconnectivity Wildcat First Nation, 3–4, 7, 10, 17, 49–51, 61, 68, 129, 130, 137, 146, 151n13, 153n3, 159n100 worldview, 13–14, 47, 63, 72, 84, 97, 104, 111–15, 118, 127, 142, 145, 150n4; Aboriginal, 6, 10, 56, 98; Eurocentric/Western, 27, 45, 48–9, 81, 141; Mi’kmaw, 4, 51, 76, 83, 94, 103